


Secret Apprentice

by softspring



Category: Dick Grayson - Fandom, Robin (Comics), Robstar - Fandom, Starfire (Comics), Teen Titans (Animated Series), Teen Titans (Comics), Teen Titans - All Media Types, koriand'r - Fandom
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Drama, F/M, Teen Angst, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26808175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softspring/pseuds/softspring
Summary: After Slade haunts Robin's mind, Starfire feels useless as she could not save him from the villain. Cyborg tells the alien princess that Slade is alive, which sets a fire in her mind. What if Slade tries to kill Robin again? He was so close this time and he could try again because she was too naive to stop it from happening. Set to protect her best friend, she goes down to the basement to destroy the mask that released the gas that poisoned the Boy Wonder's mind. As she is about to do it, the haunting starts again. This time is not Robin who is in danger, it's her planet and her new home too. Trapped with this information she accepts to keep the biggest secret she could ever hold on to. Slade will help her stop her sister from taking both Tamaran and Earth as long as she keeps the fact that they are working together for herself. She can't tell Beast Boy, she cannot tell Raven, she must not tell Cyborg and there is no way Robin can know about it. Will the alien princess be able to save her planet and her new home? Or will her friends end up seeing her as the new traitor?
Relationships: BBRae, Beast Boy/Raven, Dick Grayson/Koriand'r, Garfield Logan/Raven, Koriand'r/Jason Todd, Koriand'r/Red X (DCU), RobStar - Relationship, Robin/Starfire, Starfire Robin, starx
Kudos: 13





	1. Haunted

Slade had just poisoned Robin’s mind and tricked him into a fight that only he could win or lose. He was so deep into the search for the masked villain that he even yelled at Starfire. She got so scared. She was scared of losing him, of losing what they had because of how much Slade was affecting Robin's mind.  
She felt useless, her alien powers didn’t make any difference. When Raven got into Robin’s mind, she felt even worse. She couldn’t do anything. The desperation gave her a rush of adrenaline that got her to rip the floor open with her bare hands to get to the basement and save her friend. She didn’t have a plan; she was just flying to him. Lucky for her, the Boy Wonder had just figured how to defeat this ghostly version of Slade on his own. So, when Kory came into the basement, he was safe but very hurt. He fell into her arms as she flew to his rescue. She could feel his heart beat slowly getting to a regular pace.

She took him to the nursing room and her teammate, Cyborg, got the gas that made all this happen out of Robin’s system. Her masked friend turned the lights off to see if it would happen again, but it didn’t. The look of relief in his face lifted a weight off her shoulders.  
Robin went to bed after that. The other four Teen Titans stayed put. Beast Boy was sick so he asked if they could take care of him now as he shape shifted between different animals each time he sneezed. Raven and Starfire laughed out loud. He was so much funnier when he didn’t mean to, she thought. Or maybe she just didn’t understand his earthly jokes. Either way, she was glad that this was all over and she could just laugh with her friends now.  
Cyborg interrupted them to tell the girls that the gas didn’t release itself, that it was triggered from outside. Slade was alive. Even after what happened with Terra. And he was after Robin again.  
They all promised to be ready when their enemy came back. She truly meant it; she wouldn’t let that man take her best friend away from her again.  
Beast Boy asked for their help once more. Raven got closer to him and used her powers to alleviate some of his symptoms. Cyborg asked if he felt better and the answer was a yes. Beast Boy cracked a joke about Raven’s healing ability and the half demon left to her room mumbling about how next time she would just leave him in pain. The shape shifter chased after her turning into a bat to get to her faster.

Starfire stayed in the room, looking at the screen where Cyborg had just showed them that Slade was alive. Her half robot friend put a hand on her shoulder.  
“Come on, Star, get some sleep. He’s fine”. Her emerald eyes were filled with tears, but she looked away so Cy couldn’t see it. “I know”, she mumbled, swallowing her feelings in the process. “I must clean up here, you can rest. We will need this space tomorrow to check on his scars and we do not want it to look this mess full”. She turned around to look at him with a big smile on her face. Cyborg nodded and left her alone.

She turned back around and stared at the screen. She turned the device off a couple of minutes after. Her eyes lit up. She stepped back and out of the room. Then she flew down to the basement. When she got there, she held her hand up to lit up the room as she looked for something. There it was, Slades’s mask. She stood there looking at it. She took it out from the box and put it close to her face. Starfire looked right into it. She could almost make up a face. Was he old? He wasn’t, he was too fit to be old. Was he young like her? Not that much. Who was the man behind the mask? Why was he so obsessed with Robin? Did he know him from before?

Suddenly, her hands started shaking. The mask was trembling, and she couldn’t hold it still. She pushed it away, but it still got to let out a small amount of gas into her face. She used both her hands to cover her mouth trying to stay as silent as she could.

“Hello, Starfire”, she turned back and there he was: Slade. “Looking for me?” The alien girl stepped back; she saw him. Starfire ran to the light switch, but he got to her first. He extended his arm, holding his fist close to her face, but he didn’t hurt her. He turned his fist upside down and opened it revealing a picture of her sister with the Tamaranean crown and royal gown. “No!” Starfire almost yelled out loud, scared, shaking. “She is in jail, you are not saying the truth and I will not let you lie to me”, the princess responded. Her eyes were glowing again, and Slade was gone because of the light, but something unexpected happened. The photo fell to the ground. Starfire let herself fall too, she took the picture and stared at it for a couple of seconds. She closed her eyes, tears pouring down her cheeks as she imagined what her sister could do to her beloved home.

“Fear not, child, I am here to help you”. Slade’s voice echoed inside her head. She ran the back of her hand through her eyes to push her tears aside. Then she stood up and there he was again. “As you see, this is the reality that your people are dealing with. I happened to keep an eye on your beloved sister because I thought her powers could be useful to me someday. I know what she is planning, just in case you want to know”. Starfire shook her head. “No, I will not let you fool me”, Slade walked around her in circles as the Tamaranean princess tried her best to keep herself together. “You see, it is in our best interests to stop her, for Tamaran and for my planet too”. Starfire stepped back trying to get away from him, but he put his hand on one of her shoulders. “I do not need your help, I have my friends”, she said. “Oh, but you do. You see, child, your human friends can’t help you in this one. You know if you want to get your planet back and protect this one from your sister, you have to challenge her on your own”. Starfire pushed his hand off of her shoulder. “But they are going to be there for me”. She responded tearing up again. He shook his head slowly. “You know that as soon as you tell them what’s happening, they will interfere. And even if they only pushed her once your planet would be doomed”. The villain was right, those were the rules. “Then I’ll do this on my own”, she started climbing the stairs, but he kept following her. She kept the photo trapped inside her right fist. “Your sister has got the most dangerous weapon she could ever get her hands on. I am convinced you know about this red diamond that has a whole planet of powerful aliens captive inside of it”. The girl turned back to face him. “That’s an old tale, nobody knows if it’s real”. Slade held her right fist and lifted it up. She opened it and saw the picture again. “I know, please, leave me alone”. He pointed to Blackfire’s chest. “Look closer”, he said firmly. She gasped. Her sister had the diamond on a necklace. Her eyes started glowing again. She couldn’t believe it. Was Blackfire so power hungry?

She flew back up to her room. The door closed after her when she entered it. Her feet touched the ground again and she stood there, in front of her door. She put her forehead against the door, as she held the photo tight in her fist. She started crying silently, gasping for air once in a while.

“Come on, child, you don’t have to put yourself through this alone. I can help you”. The alien girl shook her head, covering her eyes with her right hand. “You cannot. Don’t you understand? In my planet we have rules that we cannot break. I must fight her on my own and put my people out of danger”. He held his hands together on his back. He walked almost silently and stopped right in front of the big window in the alien’s room. There he could see almost every corner of Jump City. “Foolish child. My people are in danger too. I need this city; I need this planet. It’s my home. You are not listening to me”. She flew next to him and stopped herself right by his side. “Earth is not in danger”. She said swallowing another sob. “Yes, it is. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Blackfire is jealous of you. She wants what you have. She sees how much people adore you here on Earth. She wants to take this planet too because of you”. Starfire sighed. “Why does she hate me so much?”. Slade turned himself to face the teenager. “She doesn’t hate you. She envies you; she wants to be you but in her own way. You know, some of us were not born to be the hero”. Starfire avoided Slade’s comment. “What’s your plan?”, she asked facing him too. “How can I trust you with my plan after how you’ve treated me tonight”. She showed him the photo. “I trust you. But-”. Slade extended his right arm to give her a communicator with an S carved on top. “You will hear from me once I am sure my plan can be successful. Now that I’ve got you in on it, I can start the preparations”. Starfire looked at her door and back at him. “How can I know you are not up to something? You hurt Robin tonight”. He let out a small laugh. “That was merely a way for me to get your attention. You wouldn’t have come near that mask if it wasn’t for Robin. Besides…” He opened the device to show her a name glowing on the screen: Deathstroke. “You wanted to know more about me. Here’s your ticket inside my mind, Koriand’r”. She looked at the screen. “Who are you?”, the princess asked. “If you keep this between us until I am sure of some things, I will answer every question you have while we prepare to take your sister down”. The sun was starting to raise, and the light came through the window. “Rest, child, I’ll need you in your full capacity. Train yourself to be the best for when the time comes to get your planet back”. As the light filled up the room, Slade disappeared.

Starfire hid the communicator and the photo inside the puff seat she had beside her bed. She looked through the window. The city came to life once again with the sun. Cars passed by, people were walking through the streets, stores opened their doors and many more things got back to business. She went to bed. She turned her back to the window. Even thought it was 6 in the morning, there was no way she could sleep, not even for a couple of hours. But there was one place where she could clear her mind.  
She flew to the roof. She sat on the edge that didn’t face the city, it faced some mountains and woods. She sat there and remembered that time she learned to meditate, so she tried it. She levitated, legs crossed, as she repeated Raven’s phrase “Azarat metrion zinthos”. Her eyes couldn’t stay closed. There were too many thoughts and emotions in her mind. She sat back on the edge and held her face on her hands, hiding it in them, wanting to disappear. But that didn’t happen, something worse did.

As Starfire’s hands started to shake from the frustration mixed with the fear a familiar voice called her name. “Starfire?”. Robin’s voice shot through her mind. Now there was a new thought leading that war inside her mind. I cannot tell him about Slade.

The Boy Wonder sat beside her. “Hey, I thought you liked to look at the city. Are you okay?”, he asked looking worried. “I am, Robin. I-I wanted to do the checking of the mountains”; the alien’s voice got softer at the end of the sentence. There was no way Robin would buy that. “Star, what is it? I know you too well. At this point there is nothing you can hide from me”. Starfire looked down to the water that surrounded the tower, she wished to jump right then and there. Robin extended his hand to her. She held it. “You are shaking, Star. Please let me know what’s going through your mind. I don’t want you to be in pain. Just let me in”. Her emerald eyes were filled with tears at this point. She looked at him, turned her body to face him more comfortably and held his face in her hands. “Can you let me in?”, she asked. He sighed.

He knew this day would come. The look in her eyes didn’t give him another choice. Besides, he knew that he was safe with her.  
He stood up. As she looked up at him, the sun covered his face a little bit. He slowly put her hands on his face and took his mask off. Starfire stood up too. She looked at his eyes, they were so blue just like the sky. She felt like she could see his soul. She took a step closer to him. “Your eyes are so beautiful, Robin”. He chuckled at her words. How could she be so brave to just say what was in her mind? he thought. “Do you remember that day when I ate the not cotton candy for the first time?”, Starfire asked, feeling as she was about to explode since the memory was so close to her sister’s first time on Earth. “I do, Starfire”, he replied. Suddenly her superhero name sounded funny to her. “I told you that Earth was full of amazing things. You were so excited about the colorful explosions that I do not think you remember but I was thinking about-”. “You”, her friend stopped her. “I remember, I was so scared to let you see that when you said that all I could think was that you were the most amazing thing on Earth”. Her heart was about to jump out of her chest. She normally felt so special when she was around him. Her heart always reacted to his presence, to his touch, to his words. But this time it felt like she could die in that moment and for the first time she could not find the right words to answer to that. This feeling mixed with the fear were not a good combo. She needed to take a step back.

“Koriand’r”, she held her hand out. “But most of my beloved family used to called me Kory”. He smiled at this information; he already knew but it was refreshing to hear her say it. He shook her hand. “Richard but most of my ex family called me Dick”. She shook his hand back and then let it go.

Her smile faded as her thoughts went back to the secret, she was keeping from him. Now she knew more about Robin, but she also knew more about Slade. “Hey, Star, what is it? You can tell me anything”. The alien girl let her head down and he quickly held her face in his right hand, caressing her check slowly. “It’s okay, Star, it’s all going to be okay. I will always be here for you”. She looked up at him. “Will you?” He nodded. “Robin I am most scared of losing you. Yesterday I was so afraid. I couldn’t help you. I disappointed you”. He put his other hand on her face. “That’s not true. I saw in the cameras how you ripped the floor open with your bare hands. I know that you are capable of so much more, that’s why I feel safe when I am with you”. She shook her head. “But you were not safe when I couldn’t see Slade. I could not protect you. And the thought of losing you scares me the most”. Her teary eyes looked like green jewels. A part of her wanted to cry because she truly didn’t see a future without him, without her team. At the same time, she knew that lying was not the best way to keep him close. But she had to do what’s best for her planet and for his too. “I want to get better; I want to practice more, and I want to be ready to fight any danger that comes for you and for my friends. I cannot lose you”. “If that makes you feel better, I will help you train, I will push you to be better. But, Starfire, there is no way you will lose me”. She inhaled and looked like she was about to burst into tears but didn’t want to let it happen. She sighed. “You promise?”. Richard gave her a kiss on her forehead. She closed her eyes as his lips touched her skin.  
She had never felt this way.

If only she didn’t have to keep that secret from him.

A/N: Hello! I'll leave you the link to my blog where you can check the cover of this series and from each chapter [HERE](https://softstarfire.tumblr.com/post/636198560277348352/fanfic-masterlist)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hello!! welcome to Secret Apprentice! English is not my first language so this may not be perfectly written. Anyways, I hope you like it as much as I loved writing it. Also, if you want to check the covers for each episode and the full series you can check it on my blog: https://softstarfire.tumblr.com/post/636198560277348352/fanfic-masterlist
> 
> Please let me know what you think of the story on the comments section!! Thank u for reading u-u


	2. Hide and Seek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Starfire is having trouble with hiding things from her friends. As she tries her best to act as normal as she can, she starts to let some things slide and they all notice how weird she is acting. Things get worse after she gets a call from Slade in which he assigns her a mysterious mission. She flies to meet him, leaving her communicator back home. The Titans are confused when they find out she has left it and Robin is filled with guilt because he thinks it's his fault. When Starfire arrives to meet the masked villain she finds out she won't be going solo for this mission. Starfire and her partner are going to do something that never ever imagined she'd do.

Almost a week had passed since Slade’s and Starfire’s agreement. She hadn’t heard from him and at this point she was getting really nervous. An idea popped into her mind as her team fought an alien invasion of tofu like people: she would go back home and deal with her sister herself if she didn’t hear from him until Saturday, the day that marked a week since they spoke. Since today was Friday, she had to tell him about this no-plan plan she had just come up with asap. 

That evening she went home with her friends while her mind tried to find a way to contact him without raising any suspicion from her best friends. Lucky for her, the alien invasion had left a lot of homeless cows in the tower as the Titans called every place they could think of that would take them.

In the main area, her friends were busy calling every farm they could find in their data base. Beast Boy was trying his best to feed the cows and keep the space clean. Starfire stood there, in the back, just a couple of meters away from the main hall that took them to the dorms. She cleared her throat before speaking. “I shall call from my bed. I am most tired”, nobody answered. She stepped back and the automatic doors opened to let her in. 

She flew back to her room. When she entered, she sat on her bed. The communicator was under her puff seat. She stared at the device for a while.  
She sighed, defeated. She had to tell him. So, she bent down and tried to get her hand under the seat. Suddenly her door opened. She fell to the floor, on her knees, pushing the puff seat. The seat fell too, covering the communicator but the photo stayed on the ground. Raven stepped in. “Are you okay?”, the empath asked. Starfire quickly took the photo and hid it inside her hand, turning it into a fist. “Yes, friend, I am well”. Raven nodded at her answer. “Robin said that we both should fly the cows to their new home”, Starfire looked through her window. “One cow at a time?”, she asked. Raven shook her head. “Cyborg has made a platform with chains so we can carry the whole thing with as many cows as we can fit in it. Are you in a hurry?”. Starfire knew that lying to Raven was not a good idea. Her powers allowed her to feel other people in a deeper way, she could notice that Starfire wasn’t telling her the truth. She could even get into her mind and find out about Slade. “Yes, I am. Robin has arranged a new course of training for me to do at sunrise. We have to hurry so I can get the most needed rest”. Raven started walking to the door. “I’ll wait for you at the rooftop”, the half demon walked out of Star’s room. The doors closed and the darkness filled the room again.

Suddenly, something vibrated and made a strange sound. She sat on the floor and picked up the communicator from under the puff. It was ringing. She heard Cyborg calling Robin and Beast Boy for help with the cows on the corridor. It got pretty noisy outside in a second as her team got the cows to the roof. She opened the communicator; there she saw Slade.  
“Starfire, the preparations are almost done. I need your help for something else. I will meet you tomorrow. I’ll send you the coordinates when the time comes for us to meet. Be ready”. She didn’t even have time to respond. The call ended and she quickly closed the device. Starfire hid it back where it was with the photo. As she walked to her door it opened again. It was Robin this time.  
“Star, we are ready for you to take the cows to a new farm”, she nodded and was about to past him when Robin quickly grabbed her hand. “Everything okay?”, the question came purely out of curiosity, but for the first time Starfire didn’t want to talk. So, she nodded once more and flew to the rooftop still holding his hand. “Star!”, was the last thing she heard. “Hey, Star! I can get there myself”, the boy wonder laughed a little bit. 

She only let him go when they got to the top of the building. “What was that?”, he asked again as their friends secured the last details of the delivery. “Nothing”, she answered. “Sometimes I get lonely when I am flying by myself”, she smiled at him before hugging him. Her arms were around his shoulders. He put his around her waist. “I am always there with you”, he took a step back to point to the communicator that was attached to the belt on her skirt. The one marked with the T. “See?”, she stared at it blankly. “Star?”, Robin didn’t understand why all of a sudden Starfire looked so lost.

“We are ready!”, Beast Boy shouted. Starfire flew to one side of the platform without saying anything else to Robin. Cyborg had made a platform made of metal strong enough to hold 20 cows. Starfire took one chain and Raven the other. The chains were attached to both sides of the platform. They both lifted the whole thing and Beast Boy cheered. “Cy, you made it!”, the shape shifter yelled as the girls flew away. Robin looked at Starfire, she was acting weird. She didn’t make a comment on the cows, nor Cyborg’s last-minute creation. It wasn’t like her to just fly off on a mission without saying goodbye to her friends. Why was she acting like this?

The mission went well. Raven and Star couldn’t really talk. The cows were moving too much and they had to concentrate on getting them to their new home safely. When they came back, they were too tired to even say a word.

At sunrise, Robin waited for the Titans on their private training camp. The whole team gathered there to practice. The leader had created a new course with Cyborg’s help, and this was a very difficult one. Since Starfire asked Robin for help to get better, he started designing a new training program for the whole team.   
The team wasn’t complete. Starfire wasn’t there yet. She was in her room trying to hide Slade’s communicator in her regular outfit. She didn’t really know where to put it. In her belt, she carried the Titan’s communicator. She tried to disguise it there but a quick look at her and you could clearly see it. She looked at herself in a full body mirror, turning around again and again, trying to see if anyone would notice it if she clipped it to her glove, to her top, to her skirt. But anywhere she put it, everyone would see it.   
“Starfire?”, Robin called her name from behind the door. She let out a small gasp. Quickly she hid the communicator in the first place she could think of: inside her top. Since it was tightly closed around her neck and on her shoulders, she figured there was no way that thing could fall off. And it looked kind of weird, but she thought that no one would be brave enough to comment how it looked on her chest. 

She flew to the door and received her best friend with a big smile. “Greetings, Robin! I wish you a good morning”, she hugged him for a second and flew her way out to the training site. Robin stayed there. He thought that it felt like if she was trying to act like herself, but she wasn't doing well.

The training was about to start. Beast Boy wanted to go first; he was still very excited after he saved the world from the tofu aliens. He jumped to the control center on the side, where Robin was standing behind the computers. “You go second, I think Starfire should go first!”, Robin said to the team, looking at Starfire with a playful smile on his face.   
The teenage alien flew to the starting point. She looked back at her teammates who cheered on her and then at Robin. “Ready, Star?”, he asked. She positioned herself on the starting line, eyes set on the finish line. Her eyes lit up as she nodded. “3, 2, 1, Go!”, Robin yelled and she flew as fast as she could. 

Five rocks came from the ground and flew right her way. She immediately wrecked them apart with her green laser eye beams. Then she avoided fire balls thrown at her from both sides. Two very strong cables tried to pull her back to the start, trapping her arms and legs. She struggled for a second and then used her super strength to pop out of the one around her arms. When her hands were freed, she shot starbolts to the one around her legs. As she did that, lightning bolts started shooting at her. She avoided each and every one of them until she was just meters away from the end. 

She turned around to find her teammates cheering her up from the sideline and in that same moment her chest vibrated. Slade was trying to reach her. Her eyes met with Raven’s. The half demon looked shocked. Starfire held her stare on her friend and then she moved her head down to see a small red light shining through her top. She couldn’t think about it for one second more because one lightning bolt shot her in the back and she fell to the ground on her hands and knees.  
Robin ran to her. “Starfire!”, everyone yelled as they went to check on her.

She lifted her head and looked at Raven again, she could tell the empath had seen something and as the fear filled her mind, she stood up. She looked at her friends for a second, backing off and then flew back to her room.

“Wow, she is not okay!”, Cyborg pointed out. “Dude! She has been acting off for a while now”, Beast Boy added. Robin listened to his team mates carefully, he noticed the same thing about Starfire: she was not acting like herself since the night that Slade got inside his head. “I‘ll talk to her”, the boy wonder walked away. “No! I will, I think I can help her”, Raven stopped him, putting her hand on the leader’s shoulder. “It’s just that we talked after what Slade did to me, so I think that maybe-”, he explained, Raven could feel how tense his body got. “Look, Starfire has been weird since then yes, but I feel like that is not the main reason why she is acting that weird. I felt it when we went to the farm, she avoided talking to me. She has used my powers before, she knows the more she says, the more I can sense when she is hiding something. And even thought she didn’t say much, I know she is”, Robin chuckled and shook his head. “You know Starfire is the most transparent person, she wouldn’t hide anything from us”, Raven just shrugged her shoulders and levitated her way to the alien’s room. Robin came after her, running as fast as he could. And when he got there, Raven was inside looking through the window. She was alone. 

“Where is she?”, Robin asked. “I don’t know, Robin. I am telling you-”, Robin opened his communicator and pushed the call button. Raven’s lit up and made a sound but they both heard another communicator in the room. It sounded muted, like it was hidden. They both walked to the bed, Robin picked up one of the pillows and there it was, Starfire’s communicator. He sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Why would she leave it back here?”. 

The rest of the team got there. “Something wrong?”, Cyborg asked. Beast Boy walked inside the room and immediately noticed Robin’s attitude. “She left her communicator”, Robin answered. “Why?”, Beast Boy sat next to the leader of the team. “You think she is in trouble?”, Cyborg asked. “It’s my fault. When Slade poisoned my mind, I hurt her, she said that. She asked me to stop and I didn’t let go of her”, Robin’s shoulders relaxed, he looked at the communicator in his hand and he tried his best to stay calm, to keep it together. “Hey, you know Star is a strong girl. She will be okay. Maybe she just needed some time alone to think. Maybe she thought she was okay but today she felt like she wasn’t and that’s fine, she will be okay”, Raven sat on the floor in front of Robin. “Yeah, man, you know she likes to go to the mall, maybe she is there”, Cyborg added coming close to his teammates. “Or she went to get more mustard, you know she loves mustard”, Beast Boy said, trying to make Robin laugh and he succeeded. They all joked around for a while before getting back to training.

Meanwhile, Starfire flew through Jump City’s sky for a couple of minutes just in case. Then she looked at the screen on the communicator to get the coordinates. She had to go to the woods, the threes covered most of that was in the ground, so she used the coordinates to get to the right place. After a couple of minutes using her speed flying abilities, she found a lodge hidden in the middle of the woods. It looked modern and very mysterious even though the windows were almost as big as the ones on the Tower. If the coordinates were right, she was looking at Slade’s place. She flew down and stepped on the entrance. As soon as she got to the door it opened. She entered the house and the door closed after her.   
Slade was there in the entering hallway. “Hello, my child. I am glad you made it. You kept our secret, right?”, he asked as he guided her to the living room. She nodded and walked with him. The living room had an amazing view of the hidden paradise that surrounded the place. The furniture was elegant, everything was either black or made out of a dark wood that looked so sleek mixed with the darker color. It looked like one of those modern houses she saw on magazines. 

“How was your flight? Did you find it easy to get here?”, he asked. “Yes, it is very hidden even from the top, but your message helped me get here with less difficulty”, she answered. As she talked, she could hear a door open inside the house, she heard steps approaching and then a familiar masked face appeared. “Oh, yes! I forgot to mention that you will be having a partner for this particular task”. Slade pointed out introducing her to the guy in the black uniform. “Hi, cutie! Time we had a date just for us, right?”, Red X spoke offering Star his hand. She crossed her arms around her chest as her eyes lit up. 

“Calm down, child”, Slade put a hand on her left shoulder as he stood by her side. Her eyes went back to normal and she sighed. “Why must he be here? I can go to any mission you want by myself. I do not trust him”, Starfire stated firmly looking angrier than every time she fought Red X. “He knows just what he needs to know for this mission, and this is a task for two”, Slade walked away from the teenagers. He went to the living area and stopped in front of the big screen in the middle. As he touched the screen to reveal his plan to Starfire he explained: “You see, for this plan I need a distraction but a really good one. Red X has a very powerful suit that will make him almost unstoppable and the skills to trick anyone who gets in his way. While Red X is distracting the people, who will be protecting our target, you will get it out of that place. You know this place; it will be a piece of cake for you and Red X will join you for the great scape”. Red X sat on the big black L couch in front of the TV. “What place is it that you are talking about? And what is the target?”, Starfire got closer to Slade, standing beside him as she looked at the files he was opening. A couple more touches to the screen and a detailed plan with graphics appeared. In the center there was a picture of the Titans Tower. “You two are going to get the T-Ship out of the Tower”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I hope you liked this chapter. On the next chapter you'll meet a new character named Red S. Wanna guess who's that?


	3. Would she wear a mask if she wanted you to know?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Starfire goes on her first mission as Slade's new "apprentice". Her nerves betray her and she ends up making just enough mistakes to make everyone confused. Meanwhile, she becomes closer to her new partner in crime. In the Titan's Tower nobody is ready for what it's about to happen. Will a mask be enough to keep her secret? Will Robin notice who Red X's new girlfriend really is? Who is Red S?

Starfire sat on the edge of a big white bed, looking at the window that covered the entire wall on the side of the room. The view was peaceful. The largest trees she had ever seen surrounded the lodge, which seemed to be the only house around. It was something that mirrored how she felt: so lonely and hidden. Behind her, on the bed, a black uniform just like Red X’s waited for her. She couldn’t bring herself to look at it. How did she get to this point? Was it too late to ask for help? 

Someone knocked on her door. “You may come in!”, Starfire answered. Red X entered the room with two soda cans. “I figured you were having an identity crisis and would need sugar. So here I am”, he sat down next to her and gave her one of the cans. She took it and sighed. “I do not want to talk to you”, she answered putting the can on the floor. “You wanna talk to your friends? To your Robin maybe?”, Starfire looked at him with an expression only reserved for fights, she was mad, and she couldn’t hide it. Sadly, Robin wasn’t hers which normally made her sad but at this exact moment it only fueled her rage. “He is not my Robin”, she stated. “But you want him to be”, Red X opened his soda and lifted up his mask just enough to drink it. Starfire turned to look at him. He chuckled when he noticed how curious she looked. “You like what you see?”, he asked, putting down the can, holding it in his left hand as he put his two elbows on his tights and spread them to let his hand hang in the middle. He looked at her. Red X asked the question jokingly but a part of him really wanted to know the answer. “I do”, she replied. He laughed immediately. “Hey, I can’t be your Robin, you know”, he replied. “And I do not want you to be my Robin”, she looked back at the large window in front of her.

“So what is it? Why are you this sad? I mean, I don’t know you that much, but I can tell from the encounter we had that this is not your normal self. You seem to be the type of person that never feels sadness or rage”, X continued looking at her. “What do you know?”, she asked changing topics. He took another sip of the soda and put it down on the floor too. “I just know that Slade wants your ship. I assume he will fly to some other planet and try to conquer it”, he laid down on the bed. Starfire didn’t move, she looked at him from the side of her eyes. “I am guessing you know the full plan”. He continued, looking at the ceiling. “I cannot tell you; I do not trust you”, she explained as she turned her body to make eye contact with the masked teenager. “Good choice, nobody does. Not even those who knew me back when I lived in my hometown”. He didn’t know why he said that, there was something about her that make feel safe enough to say things that he wouldn’t tell any other person he had met in Jump City, those who didn’t know him by his real name. Either way, he regretted it immediately because the look on her eyes let him know that she wanted to know more. “Where is your hometown?”, he asked to change the focus of the conversation. “Out of this planed. Tamaran”, she replied without even considering the risks of letting him know. So, she felt safe too, he thought. She was an alien, no surprise. “Yours?”, she asked laying down beside him. The two were separated by the uniform that laid in the middle of the bed. “It’s not that interesting as another planet”, he tried to make her forget about it. She just moved a little bit closer to him and he couldn’t stop looking at her green eyes. Those eyes were really controlling even when she was just starting. He looked away, at the ceiling.

The sun was coming down, the room was getting darker and darker. The silence between them didn’t feel uncomfortable at all. He didn’t know if he could tell her where he came from. It was a big city after all. He could be anyone that lived in that big city. There was no way she would find out. But what if she told someone that knew the city? And there was someone in her team that knew the city as much as Red X did.

She waited patiently for his answer. He could feel her stare through his mask, it felt like she was looking right into his eyes. Could she see past them?  
“Gotham”, he answered, and she looked up at the ceiling, tilting her head a little bit. She didn’t know anything about Gotham. Where was it? Was it close to Jump City? She could just imagine how it looked and if it was something like Red X, she just pictured a very dark city.

The door opened up and they got up as fast as they could. Red X covered his face again. Slade came in holding a silver briefcase. “Red X, I need you back in the living room. Starfire get ready. We leave at midnight. Red X walked out of the room, looking at Starfire one last time before he left. Did she know he was smiling behind his mask?  
When the door closed after the two man left, she stayed put in the darkness. She looked at the clock on the wall, it was 6pm already. The room wasn’t too dark yet, she could still see her surroundings.

She stood in front of the uniform and started taking hers off to get into the black one. This one had an S instead of an X. Slade or Starfire? What did that S mean? She didn’t want to think about it. She just put it on.

To her left there was a full body mirror. She looked at herself on it and she could feel her heart falling down to her stomach. She felt weird. She didn’t know if she was about to puke, to pass out or to die. She just wanted to disappear once again.  
You could see her delicate body under that uniform. It suited her well. Every inch of her body was covered. The boots even covered her ankles. The black gloves hid her hands and also prevented her from shooting her starbolts.

“Starfire!”, Slade called her name from the outside. It was time to get the toys and to learn the strategy that they would be following for this mission.  
20 minutes before midnight, both teenagers got out of the lodge. Red X’s motorcycle waited for them outside. Another rule that Slade set for her was ‘no flying’. She couldn’t reveal her powers to the other Titans or they would immediately notice who she was. So, she had to go in the motorcycle with Red X.   
Her mask and the uniform hid her hair, so she couldn’t feel it flying with the wind. She couldn’t even feel the wind. Her whole body was covered to hide her identity. There was something comforting about being this covered. She felt invisible to those who didn’t know who was inside. But she missed feeling everything through her uncovered skin. The only thing she could feel was the warmth coming from Red X’s body. She held on to his waist and her chest touched his back. She could feel his heart beating fast, or was it hers?  
When they got close to the island where the tower stood, Red X yelled her name.

“Go through the back”, she responded. “You can’t fly!”, he yelled back. “I won’t, just go to the back of the tower and keep going, we will get there”, he was about to complain again. “Trust me”, she stated and somehow, he did trust her. He did before but now he trusted her more than ever. And he was surprised to see how as they were about to fall to the water a metal platform appeared connecting the shore on the woods were they came from to the island. He smiled under his mask; he could trust her.

When they got to the Island, they stopped on a spot that wasn’t caught on any of the cameras around the Tower. She got off the motorcycle and stood on the side. Red X took out his helmet, as he got off his vehicle. She didn’t move. “Starfire, the security system. Let’s go!” The Tamaranean princess shook her head. “I cannot do this. I will not be able to do this. I have to go, please”, she was about to walk away when he stopped her. He grabbed her arms, trying to keep her together. “Calm down. It’s okay, I know it’s scary, but you’ve dealt with worse, haven’t you?”, the question brought back memories from her time as a slave, she had dealt with much worse. “But this is different, Red X. This are my friends. I am a traitor”. Starfire tried to keep herself from sobbing, but it only ended up making her shake. He could feel her body tremble, she felt so fragile. “What do you want to do then, Starfire?”, Red X asked. She let her head down and, in a whisper, she confessed what she had been feeling for a while now. “I just want to disappear”. Red X stayed silent. He had felt that way before and not only once. He became Red X trying to do that. He could say many things he wished someone had said to him when he felt that way but there was something else that they both shared that could be more helpful. “Star?”, his voice sounded softer and calmer than his regularly playful tone. She looked back up at him. He slowly took off her mask, revealing her face, which immediately broke his heart. Her eyes were full of tears and didn’t have that spark that made her look like she had the strength of a thousand suns inside of them. “There’s something in the suit that can fulfill your wish without making you go away”, he tried to choose his words carefully. “What is it?”, she looked just a child looking forward to a gift, like he did back when he was and hadn't lost everything yet. Red X stepped back and pushed a button in the middle of her utility belt. She disappeared. He took her hand, guessing where it was and lift it up so she could see that she was invisible. “How did- “, he chuckled at her curiosity. Her eyes came back to life with it. “I made your suit just like this one, so it has the same abilities. You have disappeared, Star, you are free”, she lifted her other hand and looked at both of them every way she could. Then all of sudden, she lifted herself up, her joy was back up. For a minute he just stared at her, he couldn’t see her, but he could hear her giggling. He was smiling again; he had been doing that more frequently today than he'd ever done. Then he looked around and was reminded where he was, what he was there for and who she was after all. He grabbed her arm and pulled her down. “Hey, Star, we have to do this. Okay?”. The Tamaranean girl pushed the button to make herself visible once again. She was still smiling. “I shall thank you for this” and then she hugged him. He froze. Her body was hotter than he had figured it would be when he had previously touched her. Not that he wondered about it. When she stepped away, she took her mask from his hand again and put it back on, hiding her hair as well as she could.

She had to reboot the security system to open the doors up. She entered a few codes in a digital panel outside of the building and then restarted it. She entered the new code “123456” and it opened the door on the base floor. When she restarted the security system, the cameras did too, erasing everything from before and would still be turned off until someone got into the security room and got them back on.

They entered through the metal doors; everything was pitch black, but their masks had the technology to make them able to see in the dark. Now that she was in, the fear came back. She froze after she entered. “Hey, it’s okay. We’ll make it through”, Red X gave her a pat on the back and kept walking to the elevator. They went to the elevator on the back and got in it to get to the top floor just under the rooftop. “No music?”, Red X complained trying to make her laugh. She just looked at him, her body was too tense and her mind too busy to laugh even if she wanted to. He noticed it, even more when he saw her hands shaking and how she hugged herself. He got closer to her. “It’s gonna be alright. You know I am the best at this. I’ll make it easy on you!”, he tried joking around. She didn’t respond again, she just hugged herself a little harder. “Starfire, you know you are good too, you will get us out of here with the T ship in a heartbeat”, he tried a new approach. When she turned her head to face him, he felt like the knot in his stomach had just loosen up a little bit. Wait, why did he have a knot in his stomach? He didn’t feel nervous ever. Was it...?

“What if they see me?”, she asked. “They won’t know it’s you”, he replied immediately, trying to cut out any thought that could be making her feel so scared. “What if they do? They have known me for a long time and- “, Red X got in front of her and put his hands on the sides of her arms. “They won’t”, his masked face got closer to hers. “But Raven could feel me”, she looked at the screen that showed them that they only had 3 floors to go. “She won’t”, he moved his face to the side where she was looking at, getting back her attention. “But what if Robin- “, he stopped her mid-sentence, putting his right index finger on her covered lips. “He won’t get to you. No one will, I will distract them if they show up, which I don’t think will happen anyways”, as he said that the doors opened, and a small beep announced their arrival. But the outside didn’t look like where they stored the T-Ship. They were on the main floor, down the hallway were the rooms were. Starfire gasped when she noticed. Red X quickly put his hand over her mouth and pushed the button that made doors close.  
When he got back to her, he noticed that he was too close to her, so he backed away.  
“It’s okay. It’s just Beast Boy’s and Cyborg’s room, right? They are heavy sleepers I assume”, Red X pointed out and she nodded. She was blushing under the mask but there was no way she was gonna tell him that.

The doors opened again and this time they were both in front of the T ship. They got out of the elevator and stood in front of the door silently for a couple of seconds. Both of them felt nervous but knew they wouldn’t be able to go back so they had one way out of there, and it was through the scape plan. 

Red X took her hand and took her out of the elevator. He let her go as they got to the T ship. She climbed onto the ship and opened Robin’s pod. She sat down with the door still opened. Red X climbed on top of it too. She started pushing buttons. First, she disabled Cyborgs security programs so nobody could see where it went or control it from outside of the ship. Then she cleared every Titans information from the ship so nobody else could access it. She just let her access code in it. Then she had to physically remove every pod’s security card so she started doing that as silently as she could. Red X got down to the floor and stood next to the door just in case. Starfire got back to Robin’s pod after taking out the trackers and destroyed it with a small laser gun that Slade had packed into her glove. Then she had to enter the coordinates. “Did you take out his tracker?”, Red X asked. She hadn’t. She started taking it off. Robin’s security box was bigger it had a tracker and a black box attached to it. She took it out and started to laser it. The black box wasn’t melting, she couldn’t destroy it. “It is not working”, she got out of the pod and jumped back to the floor. “Let’s leave it here”, Red X replied. “We cannot, Slade said we had to disappear every part of the security plan”, she insisted. “Let me try”, he took the metal box and tried some of his gadgets on it. Nothing worked. “I will cover it in a red X and I will throw it out when we get out”, he pointed out. "I can’t use mine; I’ve got just the necessary in case we need them. “Throw one of yours at it”, he extended his arms as he held the box. She looked at her utility belt and quickly pulled out one of the gadgets. When she threw it, it exploded, it wasn’t one of those sticky Xs, it was a gas bomb and it made a loud noise. “Fuck”, Red X mumbled and let the box on the floor. 

“Indeed”, Beast Boy’s voice replied. “Who are you?”, Cyborg asked trying to look for his opponent, but the gas was still not letting them see who was there. Red X didn’t answer. “It doesn’t matter, Titans, go!”, Robin yelled, and the team started trying to fight Red X while the gas started to dissipate. Starfire stepped back slowly, trying to avoid being heard, but it failed. As Beast Boy shifted to an eagle, he heard her moving back to the T ship. She couldn’t see him when he suddenly pushed her to the ground now in the shape of a tiger. He stayed on top of her. The gas was now barely there, and everyone could see their opponents. Beast Boy shifted back to himself as he looked surprised at this new female version of Red X. “Hey, Robin, he’s got a... girlfriend?”, he yelled. Robin looked back at them and he saw a girl hidden behind the Red X uniform and the mask. “She is not my girlfriend!”, Red X yelled as he threw an X that pinned Beast Boy to a wall. As he was about to do the same to Robin, Cyborg pushed him to the side, but he escaped using the button in the middle of his belt. 

Starfire was still in the ground frozen. Robin ran to her and with his BoStaff he pinned her back to the floor. “Who are you?”, he asked, and she could feel her heart raising immediately. She couldn’t move. Not because of the BoStaff, but because they had never been this close in this way. “Would she be wearing a mask if she wanted you to know?”, Red X asked jumping down from the T ship and pushing him off of Starfire. As he did that, she stood up and locked herself on Robin’s pod. “Hey! That’s my ship!”, Cyborg ran to his baby. Red X threw an X that exploded and threw him and Raven to the ground. Beast Boy came at him from his back. Starfire jumped out of her sit. “You are scaring my partner”, Red X laughed as he vanished once more. He had to open the door on the ceiling, so he threw another bomb at Beast Boy and then pinned him back to the wall. He threw an X on Raven’s mouth just in case and an electrical one at Cyborg so it could mess his system up. Robin was getting to the T ship. Red X quickly threw him an X shaped blade to get him off the ship and another one that exploded to put him out for a while. He then pushed the doors button to open it from the inside. As it opened, Starfire checked the coordinates and it started to lift up. Robin got back up and tried once again to get on the ship. Red X pushed the button in the middle of his belt to teleport himself to Robin. He appeared by his side and pushed him away. They both fought for a bit and Starfire could not avoid looking at them. She couldn’t stop her body from turning around and putting one hand on the glass door. She then pushed herself to get back to her seat and when she did that, she moved the part where the mask and the uniform met on her back letting a little bit of her red hair show. 

The Titans were trying to help Robin out, but Beast Boy was looking at the girl inside the T ship and he saw that small gap that let her red hair show. “Starfire!”, he yelled out. Starfire looked at Red X as every Titan looked at her, including Robin. Red X threw another explosive at Robin and then a gas bomb so he could get on top of the ship and fly out with Starfire.  
As the gas dissipated once again, they saw Red X jump off of the ship using a claw just like Robin’s. He had put a clocking device so that nobody could see the ship flying around the city.  
The Boy Wonder tried to stand up, but he was really hurt this time. They all heard a motorcycle start and then the sound disappeared.   
“Dude! That was Starfire”, Beast Boy said, before shifting into an elephant to get out of the X’s grip. He then got back to his human shape and took off the X on Raven’s mouth. Nobody said anything while they liberated each other.

Raven went to check on Robin, who was now slowly sitting back on the floor. As she tried to use her powers to heal him, Beast Boy ran to them.  
“Did anybody listen to what I just said. That was Starfire!”, he yelled this time. “Beast Boy, that wasn’t Starfire, you are making no sense”, Cyborg replied fixing himself up. “As always”, Raven replied standing up. Robin stood up too feeling a little bit better. “What?! Didn’t you see it? The way she looked out of the pod”, Beast Boy insisted. “Yes, she was worried for Red X, she got scared when Robin attacked him”, Cyborg interrupted him as he walked to the team. “No! She looked scared when Red X attacked Robin”, Beast Boys insisted, now raising his voice and getting angrier. “She probably was scared that Robin would hurt Red X, I think she is his girlfriend or something like that”, Cyborg started walking away to the door. “No way! I saw her hair! She had red hair! Like Star!”, Beast Boy yelled at Cyborg. He turned back to him. “Red X, red hair. Besides, you know he got a thing for Star, he might have just found a girl with the same hair color and convinced her to do this”, Cyborg walked out. “Why is no one paying attention? She is STARFIRE!”, Beast Boy yelled again. “Beast Boy, stop it!”, Robin raised his voice. “There is no way that that girl is Starfire. She would never do this. She would never betray us. She is the reason why we are a team; she is the one person who is always there for each of us, she was there for me even when Slade was using me against you all. She would never ever hurt us! So, cut it out!”, Robin walked out while every other Titan stood there frozen.   
“But she didn’t hurt us”, Beast Boy replied in his softest voice. Cyborg left after Robin complaining about his security system.

“I know she has been acting off, but partnering with Red X? You know there is no way she would do that”, Raven explained to him, trying to calm him down.  
“But what if Slade is using her? You know? The S on her uniform”, he tried to point out his theory. “You know he likes to show off, if he was using her, he would have sent her without a mask to let us know he was behind it”, she took his hand and caressed his skin with her thumb. “But maybe he is being cryptic with the S and trying to confuse us”, she shook her head. “Cyborg is right, Red X had a thing for her, so I think this is his way of showing off to Robin. It’s just that. We will find him and get the T ship back”, she hugged him to erase any other concern he had in his mind.  
Starfire flew to Slade’s place and as she landed on the yard, the patio opened to reveal an underground garage with enough space for the T ship and another vehicles. Red X slid in through a ramp on the side. They both got off their vehicles and saw Slade entering into the garage. He clapped slowly as he walked to the couple of teenagers. “Is that everything?”, Starfire asked.  
“Yes, that is all for now, I will contact you both when I need you, until then you may leave”, Slade stood there as Red X got on his motorcycle. “Goodbye, cutie, call me if you need a partner in crime”, he spoke as he got out of the garage. Starfire waited until they were both alone to ask the question she had been waiting to ask to Slade.

“Why the T ship?”, she said. “I am going to Tamaran”, Slade turned around and walked back to the lodge. She followed him, taking off the mask, clutching it in her hand. “Why?”, she asked, flying by his side like a ghost trying to get inside his body. “I can’t let you know about my plan, if I do that you could risk it”, Starfire got in front of him trying to stop him. “I will not”, she was pushed aside but still tried to follow him. “Please!”, she yelled after he passed by her side. There was no way for her to notice this, but Slade grinned under his mask.

“Well, child, your sister is a very selfish alien woman. She will not give up on this ridiculous plan, so I will have to unite with her to get inside of her team and then I will have all the information I need for you to destroy her”, Starfire gasped. “I will...?”, she let the mask fall to the ground. “Kill her?”, he asked. “I don’t think you will have to. I know you won’t want that so I will get every piece of information to make her so weak that you won’t need to do it”, he added. “I will fight her if I must, but I will not kill anyone”, she stated, picking up the mask. “You won’t”, Slade turned around and put his right hand on top of hers. “It’s going to be okay, my child. I won’t let you do that”, he replied before going back to the room in the back of the house. She stayed in the stairs that got them to the house for a while.

After putting her regular uniform back on, she flew to the Titans Tower, with a backpack full of lies. The communicator, the photo, the uniform and a clocking device that hid the backpack. She had managed to accumulate that many lies that Slade got her a black backpack made of the same materials that he made the Red S suit.  
Red S. Red S. Red S. She couldn’t believe that she would ever get to be that: a villain.   
As she flew back to the Tower, she felt that loneliness she told Robin about. It wasn’t that she was lonely when she flew, she felt lonely because she couldn’t tell her loved ones about all the secrets, she had been hiding for what felt like years.

Starfire got to the Tower and snuck into her room as fast as she could. But as she entered the room, she saw Robin sitting on the edge of her bed, looking through the window. The only thing lighting up that room was the screen of her Titan’s communicator which he held in his hand. His unmasked face was barely visible.   
She stepped in and he turned his body immediately trying to find her. She quickly let go of the backpack leaving it on the floor at the entrance of her bedroom. She lit up her right hand with a starbolt. He stood up, silently looking at her.

“Where were you?”, he asked. His voice cracked a little bit when he spoke. She had never seen Robin like this. Did she broke Robin?  
She ran to him and hugged him tightly. He buried his face on her shoulder, his body shook in between her arms. He was fighting his feelings so hard that he didn’t have much energy left to move like he would normally.

“Robin, what happened?”. Another lie. She knew what happened, she was there. She saw him.  
He stepped back to look at her face once again. “Red X took the T ship, he disabled every security system and clocked the ship so we were blind and know we don’t know where he went with it. He even got a new partner. I couldn’t stop him. He entered into our house and took what he wanted, and I couldn’t do anything”, Robin explained shaking his head in denial. He sat back on Starfire’s bed and told her every detail he recalled. She listened to him, trying to look as surprised as she would normally be if she really didn’t know about this attack. The way he recalled almost everything let her see how much this mattered to him, how hurt he was, how much pain she had caused. He didn’t mention Red S as much as she thought he would. Did she want him to?  
Robin ranted until he got to Beast Boy’s accusations. She looked at her door, not because she wanted to, just because she could feel her face burning and another wave of tears wanted to come out of her emerald eyes.

“I know, I talked to him. He will apologize to you, he said he was just in shock because of the attack”, Robin moved closer to her, just a bit.  
“Star, are you okay?”, he asked. “I am so sorry; I didn’t ask you about your day”. She turned back to him. Her eyes were still watery, but she had to at least give him one truth out of a hundred lies. She stared at him with a small grin on her face.

“I missed you”, she whispered. Their faces were just centimeters apart. He let his head down and got closer to her so his forehead would touch hers again. “I missed you too. But... I was worried, Starfire. The only time you left like that was when you were about to be eaten by a monster. Just let me know that you’ll be safe, and I will wait for you. Okay?”, he asked looking into her green eyes. A tear rolled down her cheek as her smile got bigger. He opened his mouth to plead to her once more, but he couldn’t say another word. Her lips were suddenly on his and time stopped.  
Robin was not an alien, not a half demon, not a half robot and not a shape shifter. He was just a human trained but a millionaire with a mask. He didn’t know what having powers felt like, he didn’t know what being invincible felt like, he didn’t know what magic felt like until this moment.

He could swear that he felt his heart and hers at the same time. He could swear that if they were falling from the rooftop, he would probably be able to fly them back to the top. He felt invincible, secure, hopeful. He felt in love. So in love that his mind erased everything else and just focused on her smell, on her warm body and on her soft lips.  
When she separated herself from him, he opened his eyes slowly. Like when you have just woken up after you fainted and you are still trying to understand what happened and how you ended up on the floor. He was trying to figure out how such an unlucky boy like him had just gotten so lucky that he got a kiss from her.  
“Robin, are you okay?”, she asked, suddenly getting back to being as shy as she always got when they had any sort of intimate moment with him.  
“Yes, Starfire, I am”.

The city lights lit up the room a little bit, the right amount for them to notice each other. The teenagers sat on the bed silently. Robin’s body felt tired, but his mind and his heart were going too fast for him to go to bed. Even though he wanted to stay there with her, he couldn’t stop himself from yawning. He tried to let his head down so she wouldn’t notice but he failed.  
“Robin, you must be tired. You shall get some of the sleep”, Starfire said with a concerned look on her face.  
He took the chance to hold her hand in his and just looked at her for a bit. He wasn’t good with words but the touch of his skin in hers and the way he looked at her was enough to let her know how much he cared, how much he loved her, how much he trusted her. Trust. He shouldn’t.  
Starfire let go of his hand and she regret it immediately. What if he didn’t understand? What if he left? What if he noticed through touching her that she was a liar?  
“Starfire, what is it?”, he asked trying to reach for her hand again, but she looked it away. “I- I am sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable”, he apologized moving away from her just a bit. She noticed that the space between them got bigger and she feared that this was just the beginning.   
Tears, again. Why was she crying so much since that haunting night? She tried to keep herself from crying but it felt like if someone was chocking her. She gasped for air as she let out a little sob, trying to hide her face from him. 

Robin almost jumped out of the bed and stood in front of her. He lifted her face with his right hand. “Star, it’s okay, you don’t have to hide yourself from me”, but she had to. She had to hide herself for more time. She couldn’t hold it in anymore and she just started sobbing. Robin hugged her immediately. Her arms were around his waist, her face looking at the door as she leaned on his abdomen. Her tears fell one after the other and it felt like they were not going to stop anytime soon.  
“It’s okay, Star, you are going to be okay”. 

Fear ate her from the inside. She was too afraid to tell him that she was afraid of Slade, but he was her only chance. She was afraid to tell him about Red X. Even though she wasn’t afraid of him and she had grown to care for him, she couldn’t tell Robin how it happened. She was afraid to tell him about Red S. She was afraid to tell him about her royalty. She was afraid of losing him, of hurting him, of disappointing him. 

There was something in his touch that made her feel like there was a light at the end of the tunnel. There was something in him that made her heart want to open up. She tried to let something out, just a bit. I am scared, she thought, but nothing came out of her mouth. She tried it once more, but nothing changed.  
Then she pushed him away softly so she could see his face again and then she said it. “Robin, I am scared. I don’t wanna go to sleep, I am too scared”, she explained. It was the truth. She had barely slept this last week. Since that haunting night, she had started to fear the darkness of the night and the new horrors it could bring her way. So, she couldn’t bring herself to sleep surrounded by the darkness that could hurt her and her friends.

“Then I’ll take care of you”, he replied. “Lie down, I’ll stay here with you”. She thought about it for a bit, but her body just obeyed.   
She got in her bed and he sat on the edge, on her right side. He held her hand and caressed it while he looked at her. “Close your eyes, Star, I’ll be here”, he said softly as the tiredness took over the alien girl’s body. “Good night, Robin”, was the last thing she could say before she fell asleep.  
As Starfire opened her eyes, she saw him. He was sleeping by her side, sitting on her bed, his back against the wall, his hand still holding hers. She looked up at his face. His lips looked so soft and beautiful. That thought brought her back to Red X. What was he like apart from his lips? His skin was white, at least she knew he was not a Tamaranean, she thought. His lips were a soft pinkish color. What was his har like? Maybe black like Robin’s? Maybe red like hers? Was it green like Beast Boy’s? Was he bald like Cyborg? What if it was purple like Raven’s? What were his eyes like? Were they as blue as Robin’s? Were they black like his uniform? She couldn’t avoid thinking about Red X as a guy full of darkness that maybe liked that hardcore music that sounded like anger to her. She imagined his home city like that too. Just a dark city with angry people. What was Gotham really like?  
Robin woke up as her mind went wild trying to figure out what Gotham may look like. She didn’t notice it until his hand moved.  
“Greetings, Robin!”, she spoke in her regular cheerful tone. “Good morning, Starfire”, he replied stretching his arms over his head. “Have you been up for a while?”, he asked looking back at her.  
“Yes, I have. I was just thinking about-“, she stopped herself. She was thinking about Red X and his city, but mostly about Red X, his hair, his name, his lips. “Gotham”, she almost yelled, trying to distract her mind. “You were thinking about Gotham?”, he asked.  
Dick’s mind got filled by the memories he made in Gotham. Was he ready to tell her about it?  
“Yes, have you ever been to Gotham?”, she asked, and he stayed silent. He didn’t want to lie to her, but he didn’t know if he wanted to tell her about his past, about his parents, about Bruce.  
“Yes. Have you?”, he asked nervously. She had disappeared for almost a day. Did she know?  
“No. I just read the name somewhere and I was trying to imagine what it was like. Tell me, Robin. Is it like this city? Is it cheerful and calm? Is it more like Aqualad’s city? Is it dark and scary?”, she tried her best not to ask what she wanted but she wanted to know more about Red X and this was her only lead.  
Robin looked away. How did she know about it being dark? Had she read something about him? Had she been trying to know more about him? Why would she do that?  
“It’s not like Jump City, it is darker and it can get scary but it is just like any other city”, he tried to avoid giving more details.  
“Do you know someone that lives there?”, she asked. He knew a lot of people there.  
He shook his head softly, he couldn’t lie to her, at least not in his words. “Do you?”, he tried to sound as uninterested as he could.  
“No, Robin. I would like to go there sometime. I would like to know more about it”, he shivered but moved away from her so she wouldn’t notice.  
“Why?”, he turned back to look at her.  
“I have not visited other cities. I have only been in Jump City and other planets since I came to Earth. I just want to know new places”, she explained as she stood up and stretched out.  
“But why Gotham?”, he asked.

As she was about to answer, their communicators started beeping.  
“Trouble!”, Robin stood up immediately and they both went to the main room as he put his mask on.  
The other Titans were already there. They looked at the big screen in the middle of the room. It showed them where they had to go.  
“Who is it, Cyborg?”, Robin asked as he fixed his uniform. Cyborg tried to hack the cameras to let them see what was going on the building that was under attack.  
The video went live in their main screen.

“Red X!”, Cyborg answered as the masked villain ran through the hallways.  
When Red X went into a room someone else came out of the other door. It was a female in a black costume and a white mask with a red S marked on it. “Dude! That’s Red S”, Beast Boy yelled, looking at Starfire’s surprised expression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3: I'm sorry for not posting as much as I wanted to. I'll make it to you in the next chapter with a strawberry dress collaboration uwu
> 
> I hope you like this chapter! I've been listening to Skylar Grey's I Know You while writing RobStar's scenes, btw. 
> 
> Take care!


	4. The day Red S disappeared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Teen Titan's fight Red X and Red S on the Wayne Tower in which they fought against Robin when he was Slade's Apprentice. Red X is very vocal with them, joking like every other day but he can't hide that something has changed for him. Starfire has changed too, her emotions are overwhelming her too much and the only one who can help her is the one who they are fighting against. Will she lean on her team or on her new friend?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4 is so angsty and I love it. I just saw Birds of Prey (finally), so I've been listening to Joke's on You acoustic version to write this chapter. I hope it helps you get into the mood. ANNNND, Yes. Jason Todd is Red X in this fanfic. I guess most people think he is Red X. I won't tell you in which moment of his life he is, in the story he will show you through his words and his thoughts. So the strawberry dress it's coming next chapter and a bit of casual titans. I love the next chapter, is one of my favorites (I've already written chapters 5 and 6 at this point). 
> 
> I'd love to know what you think about the story, so let me know in the comments.  
> I am also on Tumblr (softstarfire) and wattpad (starsandfire_). 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!

The Titans got to the Wayne building on time. Starfire brought Robin flying through Jump City’s sky. Raven brought Cyborg and Beast Boy flew with them in the shape of an eagle. They all landed on the roof. The big sign that spelled the Wayne name stood in front of them. For a moment they silently stood there. It was the same building in which they fought against Robin when he became Slade’s apprentice. “This place gives me the creeps”, said Beast Boy, now back to his human self. “Tell me about it”, Cyborg mumbled looking at the leader. “I know”, Robin sighed. “But we are here to catch Red X. Any idea of what he’s looking for?”. A loud noise caught the Titan’s attention. “Just for fun”, a familiar voice responded. Red X sat on top of the A and beside him Red S stood firmly. “Titan’s go!”, as Robin yelled the regular call to action, Red X threw his classic gas bombs to distract them. The gas covered their sight so they couldn’t see where he went or if he even moved. When it dissipated, they saw both teens in the black uniform standing on the edge by the side of the building. The same side in which Robin and Starfire were put one against the other by Slade. “Come out and play, Titans”. Red S jumped off the building and Red X pushed the button that activated his clocking technology so he could vanish.   
Beast Boy was the first one to run to the edge. He leaned forward to look for them, most importantly for Red S.  
“Where did she go?”, Beast Boy asked before jumping and shape shifting to a pterodactyl so he could run after her. But to his surprise, she was nowhere to be seen.   
Robin jumped on one side of the big lit Y to look for Red X. He jumped letter to letter. Cyborg tried looking for him with his heat detection gadget built into his eye. Raven ran to the edge of the front of the building and still nothing. Robin got to the end of the letters and was about to fall from running and jumping too fast when he got to the E. Starfire immediately flew to his rescue but before she could touch Robin, Red X appeared in the middle of the two Titans.  
“What’s the matter, Robin? Brought back memories?”, Red X looked at him and he turned around to look at Starfire who was floating next to them. “Hello, cute stranger”, Red X let out a laugh and jumped off the letters. Robin jumped after him. Raven tried push Red X off, but he got to her first. He put a sticky X over her mouth and two on her hands so she couldn’t use them for her telekinetic powers. “Daddy is not coming to save you?”, the comment caught Raven by surprise, so her strength was affected. He kicked her away and when he did Cyborg blasted his Sonic Cannon, but Red X quickly used a new gadget on him. A small X that looked like a mirror and it reflected Cyborg’s attack on to himself. Robin ran to Red X and tried to push him with his BoStaff, but he ran away. X guided Robin through a door that led to the emergency stairs and he jumped to the floors beneath. Starfire flew after them confused, trembling but somehow, she was also intrigued.  
Cyborg stood up and ran to Raven. He slowly removed the tape like Xs that were stuck on Raven’s pale skin. When he uncovered her mouth, she sighed. “What’s up with him?” “He’s playing with us”, Cyborg responded freeing her hands too. Then he helped her stand up. “You okay, Raven?”, he asked, and she just nodded. They ran to the door that the others went through but the lights on the roof suddenly exploded blinding them both. Overload appeared in front of them. “He’s also come out to play?”, Cyborg asked. “Lucky us”, Raven pointed out before summoning her powers to get Overload down.  
Three floors beneath the rooftop Starfire flew through the offices and she couldn’t find Robin or Red X. The lights were turned off and the only illumination came from a balcony on the inside of the building that was surrounded by other smaller offices that had a front wall made of glass. When she got closer, she heard something and finally she saw Red X and Robin battling in the shadows. He kicked Robin away and turned to Starfire, who met them at the hallway next to the balcony. “Hey, cutie”, as he said that Robin punched him in the face, and he fell to the ground. “Such a-“, Starfire shoot a Starbolt at him and he avoided it. “You mind waiting for a bit?”, Red X asked before throwing one of the sticky Xs at her, pinning her to a wall.  
The Boy Wonder and the masked villain went back to their fist fight. They had almost the same style of fighting, Starfire noticed. Why would that be? Maybe Red X was a fan before becoming a villain. Maybe they were trained by the same team. Who trained Robin? She thought and then she lost sight of them.  
The two boys entered an office pushing each other. Robin used his Bo Staff to pin Red X to one of the glass walls. “What do you and Red S want?”, Robin asked. “Would it be fun if I just told you that?”, Red X pushed him away once more making him fall to the ground. “You are not fun, Robin. I don’t know what she sees in you really", Red X threw X shaped blade cutting Robin’s arm. “What do you mean?”. Robin stood up once again, covering the wound in his arm as some blood started coming out of it. “You know what I mean”, Red X walked to Robin slowly. “Is this about Starfire?”, the leader of the Titans asked. “It’s always been about her, isn’t it?”, Red X asked seriously standing in front of the Boy Wonder. “Don’t you think this is to much for-” “For her?”, Red X completed the question and the masked hero shook his head. “Look, you are no villain, X, you don’t have to do this. We can be…” “Friends? But you are not just her friend. Are you?”. Robin sighed. “Then who is Red S?”, he asked truly confused. “My friend”, Red X caught Robin in another sticky X, trapping his arms, then he pulled his utility belt off and punched him on the head to get him off his feet.  
Starfire couldn’t hear what they were talking about and the silent was scaring her. She was shaking, she felt cold and she felt powerless. She tried pushing herself out of the X but she couldn’t. She tried to see where they went but she couldn’t. She tried to listen to what they were doing but she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything, just like she couldn’t do anything for her planet now that Backfire was the new queen.   
Then they appeared back on her line of sight. Red X had trapped Robin in a similar gadget to the one in which Starfire was stuck. Robin was struggling, trying to escape as Red X dragged him to an office next to where Starfire was pinned.  
“Robin!”, Starfire yelled his name as her eyes lit up. Red X looked at her. He pushed Robin into the empty office and closed the door, sealing it with a laser that he had in his gloves. “Now, for the cutie”, Red X walked to her as she struggled, trying to get herself out.  
“Don’t you dare touch her”, Robin shouted from inside the room as he tried to free himself to get to Starfire.  
“What is this?”, she whispered as he got closer to her. Red X stood in front of her, his hands on his hips as he laughed at Starfire’s attempts to fight her way out of the X. “Just playing with my friends”, he replied, still just standing there in front of her. Starfire’s eyes lit up again, she felt a very strange wave of anger wash over her thoughts. She wasn’t familiar with this emotion as she hadn’t really felt this angry ever since she moved in with the Titans. Just that one time Blackfire tried to frame her for stealing.   
“Besides, I figured I could help you out by bringing a hologram of Red S with me just in case there was any suspicion of your little secret”, he whispered, getting closer to her. Her eyes went back to the regular emerald color. Did he care about her?  
Red X put his right hand on the wall just beside her head. His left index finger lifted up her chin a little bit as he got closer to her. “We are partners after all”, he whispered. “Then let me go”, she replied. “It’s fun seeing you like this”, he let his head down for a bit as he laughed at her again. They both could hear Robin trying his best to get out of Red X’s trap. “Let me go!”, Starfire yelled. “Hey, I did something for you, give me a win”, he lifted his head back.  
The two teenagers argued in secretive whispers. The only light that illuminated them was the one that came from the floor above them through the balcony which was just meters away from the two.  
From the outside you could barely see them through the dark windows. That’s what Beast Boy thought as he flew next to that floor’s window and saw through one of them what looked like two people talking against a wall. He got closer to the glass to the window and then he saw something that didn’t make sense.   
“Robin will notice”, she whispered. He nodded. He stepped back and got an X shaped blade out of his belt to cut the one that pinned Starfire to the wall.  
“Now, shoot me and I will just disappear, okay?”, he said as he walked back to the balcony in the middle of the hallway, his back against the metal and glass railing.  
She took off the rest of the sticky X. “I don’t want to hurt you”, she whispered once more. “Just do it, Star”, he opened his arms and she shot green lasers from her eyes. He immediately fell through the balcony and she ran to look for him. But he wasn’t there anymore, as he said, he vanished.  
Beast Boy couldn’t believe it, he went back to the rooftop, where Cyborg and Raven had just defeated Overload.  
“Guys! You won’t believe what I saw. Well, what I think I saw. I was flying by the windows of the building looking for Red S and I couldn’t find her outside, so I figured she was inside. Then I started looking through the windows floor by floor and I saw something. I mean, I am not sure because it was very dark. But I think I saw Red X talking to Starfire and then he helped her out of his trap. Which I didn’t understand. Then she shot him, and he fell through the balcony. Before you say something, let me add, that I didn’t understand what had just happened. So, I went back to what I saw first and then it hit me”, Beast Boy hugged his two friends to get them closer. Cyborg tried to push his arm off his neck. “Come on, BB, you are not making any sense and it’s already been a really weird day”. Beast Boy shook his head. “Listen, listen, listen, let me talk”. Raven rolled her eyes. “I am trying to say this as kindly as I can, but you usually make no sense and I don’t think is time for one of your jokes”. Beast Boy gasped. “Raven, I am hurt but not surprised”, he spoke dramatically. “Spill it, BB!”, Cyborg punched him jokingly and Beast Boy yelled what he wanted to say. “Red X kissed Starfire!”.  
He had said that at such a loud volume that Robin and Starfire could clearly hear it as they opened the door on the rooftop.   
Everyone looked at the pair in silent.  
“What the fuck?”, Cyborg asked laughing at Beast Boy’s claim. “Did you hit your head?”, he continued. “No, I am telling you. He kissed her. Right, Star?”, Beast Boy, looked back at her. She could unlock a new level in this game of lies that she was playing. She could play the victim and they would pity her. The would be angry at Red X and Robin would not stop until he caught the villain. But that wasn’t what she wanted. Red X was mean, sure, but he wasn’t a bad person.   
“No, he didn’t do such thing. He was being mostly annoying”, she answered as the couple approached the rest of the team. “But you were talking to him”, Beast Boy pointed out.”I heard that”, Robin joined in. “What did he say to you?”, he looked at her and she imagined those blue eyes waiting for an answer.  
“He was being mean, he was talking about all of you-“, she got interrupted by Raven who asked her if Red X had revealed something about Red S.   
“He said that... he said that he picked her because she looked like me but was disappointed when he noticed that I was not in the Tower when they got in. That’s why they came here, just so he could be mean to us and-“, Cyborg cut her this time. “I knew that. He is always trying to get Robin angry by picking on Starfire”, he pointed out. “Yes, he is”, Starfire agreed. “But that doesn’t explain why he stole the T ship. And the S. What if Slade is planning something and he sent them to steal the T ship”, Robin asked looking away from the team. “He isn’t”, Starfire responded and immediately bit her tongue. Robin turned back to look at her, “did he say that? What else did he say, Starfire?”, Robin was getting tense at the thought of the stolen T ship and the possibility that Slade was back after what he did to him.  
“No, I asked him and he said that he worked alone”, Starfire tried to take back what she had just said. But the whole team had too many questions. Beast Boy pointed out that he didn’t work alone know that he had Red S. Cyborg said even if he denied it, they couldn’t trust Red X. Raven mentioned that Red X had something on Robin and that Slade would be the perfect ally for him.   
Starfire stood there in silence. If they went after Slade, they could find the T ship and then he would not help her to neutralize Blackfire. She had to distract them. She had to tell Slade. But he would be disappointed. What if he gave up on the plan?   
There were too many thoughts in her mind. She didn’t know where to start. There was nothing she could say to Robin that would take his mind off of Slade. He would start investigating. What if he found the communicator? What if he found the uniform? What if he found out that she knew Slade’s other name?   
She slowly walked away and then she flew back to the Tower.  
They all turned around and saw her as she disappeared in the distance. Nobody said anything. They believed her. Everybody believed what she said. Everyone but Robin, he knew how disappointed she was when he became Red X, maybe this was what she feared. Maybe the possibility of Slade coming back worried her, and she was trying to protect them. But that wasn’t like Starfire, she wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t lie. Would she?  
Starfire got into her room and hid the backpack in her closet. She opened it to get the communicator out. She called Red X using it. He didn’t pick up immediately, but when he did she just broke down. She cried her eyes out while Red X just listened silently. Not a laugh, not a word but the silent felt comforting.  
“I am sorry”, she apologized after a minute of just crying without saying a word. “What happened?”, he replied from the other side, she could hear the concern in his voice. “Beast Boy saw us talking and I did not know what to say so I invented something about Red S”, she explained, still sobbing in between her words. “And?”, Red X didn’t get what the problem was, it wasn’t like he didn’t stop to flirt with her every time he could when he fought against the Titans. “Robin didn’t believe me; they think you are working with Slade. So, I told them that you said you worked alone but it made it worse. Now everyone will go after Slade and he won’t help me safe Tamaran”, he didn’t know about Tamaran. He accepted working with Slade just to piss off Robin, he didn’t know what this mission meant for Starfire.  
“He will help you; you will tell him and he will figure something out like he always does”, Red X replied. “No, he will be disappointed in me”, she sobbed again, tears filling her eyes. “Maybe, but I’ll be there. Meet me at the Lodge, he’s out now. I’ll get us in and then we’ll tell him together”, she ran the back of her hand under her nose and calmed down. Red X sounded so sure of what he just said that she believed him. “Okay, I shall see you there”, she said back to him and closed the communicator.   
She ran to the backpack and put it on. Then she took a piece of paper out of her diary and she wrote a simple note. “I need some time alone. I will be back soon. Until then I do not want to put you in danger because of my feelings. Goodbye, friends”. She left the note and the Titans communicator on her bed.  
There was something else that she wanted to do so badly but couldn’t. For a long time, she had been wanting to disappear and, in her backpack, there was one thing that could help her. She took Red S’s utility belt out and ripped the center off. It was the clocking device. Then she packed the rest of it back and left the room with her bag full of secrets.   
She went to the rooftop. In her right hand she held the button she took from the dark suit. She stood on the edge of the roof that faced the woods. Starfire closed her eyes and thought of freedom, of the feeling of honesty and not having secrets that glued her to the darkness. She lifted herself and her feet left the ground. Still with her eyes closed she pushed the button and flew away. She opened her eyes and saw everything around her, but she didn’t see herself. As her body disappeared, her problems did too. She felt free. No one could see her ran away. So, she flew as fasts as she could to the Lodge. Her alien powers gave her super speed and she used it at its maximum.   
She hummed a song in her head, a soft song she heard once on the mall. She could relate to that song too much, so she kept repeating it in her mind. She felt glued too and today she had been physically glued. She felt glued to Robin, to the team, to Earth, to Tamaran, to the memory of her family and now she felt glued to so many lies. At least one of those secrets made everything just a little bit better.  
When she saw the Lodge down on the ground, she let herself go. She just fell and stopped the fall by flying slowly to the ground once she was just inches away from it.   
She was on the main entrance. She hit the button in her hand again to uncover herself. This time, when she got close to the doorbell the face recognition built in opened the door for her. She entered and slowly closed the door just in case Slade had returned.   
She walked around the house as quietly as she could. It was still pretty early in the morning so she could see clearly every corner of each room. There was no one in the garage, no one in the living room, no one in the kitchen or in the dining room. Her room was empty, and Slade’s door was closed as always. There was one room left, the one were Red X stayed last time. The door was almost closed, so she slowly got closer to take a peek inside and what she saw made her freeze on the spot.  
Red X was standing in front of the full body mirror that appeared to be the same as the one in her room. He was looking at himself and he wasn’t wearing his mask. She could see his black hair, his fair skin and his eyes. They were blue, like Robin’s. His face was beautiful but different from her best friend’s. He had darkness in his eyes that Dick didn’t have when he took his mask off. Maybe he too had that darkness when he wore the mask.  
Red X, narrowed his eyes. He quickly turned around and saw the Tamaranean princess. She gasped. He did too and he covered his face with his hands. He almost jumped to the bed to grab his mask and put it on.  
“No, no, no! Do not put it on!”, she yelled as she entered the room and put her hands on his, trying to take the mask away.  
“As I said, the first time Robin asked, I wear a mask because I don’t want you to know who I am”, he explained trying to pull his hands away from the alien’s grip.  
“But I do not know who you are”, she replied. He stopped fighting. “You saw my face every time we fought but you only got to know me when we talked”, she explained. “So, you want me to tell you”. “No”, she let go too. “I do not want you to do nothing that you do not want to do. If you wish to share who you are with me I would be more than happy to hear it, but if you do not want to, then I shall keep what I just saw only in my memories”, he let out a chuckle. “Why are you like this with me? I mean, I am not your friend. I don’t do friends”, he sat down on the bed and she sat right next to him. “To me you are. I cherish you because without even knowing, you have been there for me through this very difficult time. Where I come from people are not nice and you were to me. So, I wish to keep you as my friend in my heart”, she shrugged her shoulders. Red X stayed silent. He would not say this out loud, but the thought of being ‘kept in Starfire’s heart’ sounded like a dream. If she knew who he really was, she would not want him near herself. Or maybe, since he was training to be better, she would.  
“So, what do you think?”, Red X asked, laying back just a little bit, putting his hands on the bed for support.  
“I do like your face”, Starfire turned her body around to look at him. “Your eyes are most glorious, they look like the summer sky”, she clapped with her hands close to her chest.  
“Yours looks better. Even better when they start glowing. I can’t do that”, he mentioned. “Oh, that is part of my Tamaranean powers. I like them too. But I love human’s eyes. They look different”, she pouted, and he had to let his head down because the sight of her doing that made him feel something that he didn’t know how to cope with. “Well, you could wear contact lenses and make them look like a regular human eye”, he mentioned and as soon as he did it she lit up in excitement. “Can you do that?”, she asked, getting closer to him, her face just inches apart from his. “Yes, you can. You can change whatever you want almost instantly: your hair color, style, eyes color, even your lips color too”, he explained, and she stood up and started levitating. He had never seen someone so happy. “I wish to try those, please”, she pleaded, and he laughed. “I’ll make sure you do”, he answered. She sat back. “Could we-“, Starfire was about to speak when someone knocked at the door.  
Red X immediately put on his mask. Slade entered the room.   
“Why are you two here?”, Slade asked. Starfire stood up. “I have to tell you something”, she spoke softly, almost as if she didn’t want him to hear her, and she didn’t. She looked over her shoulder at Red X, her eyes were starting to fill up with tears again. “I- I made a- I...”  
Red X stood up too. He took a step forward and took her hand, pulling her back to stand behind him. “She is trying to cover for a fuck up I made. I tried to help Starfire distract the Titans in case they suspected her and now they think I am working with you because of a mistake I made”, he spoke clearly, no cracks in his voice, it was as if he was telling the truth. She had to learn how to do that.  
“It doesn’t matter, children. I am not going to be here for much longer. I will fly to Tamaran in an hour. You two are going to help me with a simple mission for which I need you to do something that I guess two teenagers will enjoy much better than anyone else. I need you to go to the museum and find out what is their security program, cameras, who is in charge, workers, everything. Then you are going to report that to me. But I don’t want to get the Teen Titan’s attention so you will have to enter through the front door and act like a regular teenager from Jump City”, he finished his answer and went back out of the room with no more explanation.  
“So, everything is okay as I told you it would be”, Red X said as he let go of Starfire’s hand and turned around to face her.  
“Everybody knows who I am, and you are a very known villain. That will get my friend’s attention”. Starfire looked at him with a confused face.  
“Well, they know Red X, but they don’t know this guy”, he took off his mask. “And maybe we can get you a secret identity, you got other name in mind?”. “My real name is Koriand’r. Does it work?”, she asked tilting her head to the right. “Well, then miss Kory will be going to the museum with mister Jason”, he raised his eyebrows and extended his hand to her. She shook it and giggled in a way that weirdly made Jason’s heart beat faster than usual.  
“But we are wearing this clothes that don’t look like a regular Jump City teen would wear”, she looked down at their uniforms. “Have you ever been to a mall?”, he asked. “Oh yes! I like going to the mall and doing the hanging out!”, she immediately jumped and clapped her hands. “Then we are going shopping”, as soon as he said that she took his hand and flew them both to the mall.  
Back at the Tower, the rest of the Teen Titans came in after talking to the police about the break in.  
They entered the Tower in silence. Robin went into Starfire’s room as fast as he could.  
“Star, I am sorry if we overwhelmed you with-“, he found himself alone in the alien’s room. He looked around, still standing on the door.  
His gaze landed on the bed and once again he saw the communicator she had left behind. He sat down on the bed and took the note that laid next to her pillows. He wanted to believe her when she said she would be back soon, but he couldn’t. He was scared for her. He knew that her powers depended on her feelings and that if she was feeling this confused, it could put her in danger. Robin wasn’t the type to follow the Titans behind their backs. They were free to go out of the Tower whenever they wanted. There was no rule that said that they had to take their communicator everywhere. But somehow, he felt like there was an unofficial rule that she had violated.   
He didn’t want to admit it, but he felt left out. Starfire was his best friend. The team was close, he knew them and loved them as their family, but Starfire was the girl that knew him more than anyone else. He knew her like that too. So, feeling like she was hiding this feelings from him hurt him in a way he had never experienced before.  
Robin walked out of the alien’s room and into the main area of the Tower. The Titans were chatting there. As the leader entered, they stopped talking. They were thinking about her, talking about her, trying to understand what was happening to her too.  
“Cyborg, I need to check the cameras”, Robin stated. “What is it? Did Red X break in again?”, Cyborg stood up from the couch immediately. “No. Starfire is gone, and I want to see where she went”, Robin replied going back to the security room through the main hallway.   
Cyborg walked after him and so did Raven and Beast Boy. “Dude, I know she is acting weird but spying on her through the cameras doesn’t sound like a good idea”, Beast Boy tried to catch up to Robin. “It isn’t but it is the only way I can at least know where she went and I want to help her, so I am going after her”, he replied not even looking at the shape shifter.  
“Okay, I know you care about her, but this is too much. You have to trust that she will be back in one piece. She is a strong girl”, Cyborg spoke as calmly as he could, feeling the tension rise as they all tried to convince Robin to give up his plan. “She is a teenager”, Robin replied. “So are you”, Raven quickly fought his argument with a pretty hard one. He stopped walking.  
“Look, if you don’t want to help me, I will do it on my own. But stop trying to change my mind. I won’t do it. Her life could be in danger and there is no way I would let anything happen to her”, Dick sighed when he stopped talking. Clearly his emotions were fighting to get out of his chest. But he didn’t let anything out, he started walking again. “Okay, okay. Don’t get all dramatic. We will help”, Cyborg followed their masked friend.  
The team got to the security room. Cyborg started looking for the footage that they wanted to see. They calculated the time she arrived at the Tower and they saw her coming in. She went into her room; they saw this from the camera on the hallway. She left just minutes after that. She flew through the emergency stairs to the top of the Tower.   
Then they saw her go through the door. She stood on the edge of the rooftop. Beast Boy covered his eyes with his hands. “Man, Star can fly you know”, Cyborg pointed out.   
Starfire lifted herself from the ground and then she disappeared.   
“But she can’t do that”, Raven added. “The way she did it, it looked familiar”, Beast Boy joined into the discussion. “No way, I know who does the same thing”, he immediately followed up covering his eyes again. Robin let a chuckle out. “I know that trick because I created it. It belongs to Red X”.


	5. The Star and the X

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Starfire has a fun date with her new friend. She gets to feel "normal", human but her happiness doesn't last long. As time flies by, her problems get worse. Will a strawberry dress make things better?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 5: I had so much fun writing StarX. I guess you can understand better how Jason can be Red X and many more things about him in this chapter. Also, I love writing scenes were the team gets to talk. I know how much they care for each other so I want to show that here. I hope you enjoy reading this chapter. Let me know what you though in the comments. 
> 
> Chapter 6 preview: Do Robin and Starfire make a better couple than Fang and Kitten?

Red X and Starfire landed on the entrance of the mall. He had put on his mask and immediately clocked himself so no one would see him. “I haven’t been to this mall, but it was the most close one”, she turned around and couldn’t see him. “X… I am sorry, Jason?”, he took a minute before letting her know she was by her side. He had never imagined he would hear her call him by his real name. Could this become a regular thing for her? For them? “Did I let him fall?”, she was walking around by his side with a worried look on her face. “I am here, but I don’t think I should enter like this”, she heard his voice and ran to him with her arms stretched trying to feel his body and she did. She wrapped her arms around his body. “Jason! I am glad that you are well, I thought I lost you”. He held his breath in, why was she so happy for him? He exhaled. Everything about her was so different and new to him, he couldn’t understand her but somehow it made him feel warm inside. She stepped back and took his hand and flew him up. This time she only took him a hundred meters above the mall. With her free hand she took off his mask. “We are out of Jump City. We shall not be recognized”, he turned around to see Jump City miles away from where they were. He could still see the back of the Teen Titans tower. “You said it was the closest”, she avoided answering and flew down again.  
Without letting go of his hand, she pulled him into the mall. It was a small one, it wasn’t too crowded and there were just a couple of security guards. Nobody seemed to care when they entered.  
They walked into the first store they found. “We shall get you a new glorious fit of the out”, Starfire stated as she walked through the aisles. She stopped at the man’s side of the store. “What style do you prefer?”, she asked looking back at him finally. “I think I can do this by myself”, Starfire looked around. “There is one thing I haven’t planned”. She got closer to him. “I do not carry the money”, she whispered. He chuckled and took some out of a pocket behind his belt. “Slade payed me just yesterday, we may as well enjoy it”, he gave her the money and she looked at it amazed. “This is too much of the money!”, she tried to keep her voice down. “Stealing from the Teen Titans pays well”, he answered. She gasped. “I do not think I should use this money if it is-“, Jason put his hand back in his pocket and took out a black card. “Here. My mh... I guess you could say, my dad? he gave me that card. He said I could use it in case of emergencies, and I think this qualifies as one”, he shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, you have a father”, her eyes opened up in surprise, “Well, he’s not actually my... It’s complicated. Just take it, the code is 1608”, she came closer to him. “Why is it 1608?”, he sighed at her question. “It’s my birthday”, he answered softly. “Oh! That is so kind from you father”, he didn’t answer. “Get some clothes and I’ll meet you at the ice cream shop, okay?”. She took the card. It had Jason’s name on it. When he was about to leave, she hugged him. “I shall thank you for this plastic version of the money”, she gave him a kiss on his cheek and walked away. Jason froze on the spot. Lucky for him, she walked off without looking back at him.  
After an hour Red X was ready. He walked to the Ice Cream shop. He was wearing black skinny jeans, black combat boots, a black t-shirt, a brownish leather jacket and a black backpack to keep his uniform in. He stopped himself a couple of stores before the ice cream shop. He looked at his reflection in a jewelry store. Would she like how he looked? Why did he care about it? He really wanted to look good, at least for her. He tried to fix his hair to make it look more casual. He ended up making it look a little like Robin’s, but like an I just woke up version of Robin’s spikey hair.  
When he got to the ice cream shop, he looked around for Starfire but she wasn’t there, so he sat in one of the tables that were near the glass door and he waited. He looked at his brand new watch. Ten minutes went by and no one came in. 30 minutes. 40 minutes. 1 hour. Nothing.  
Jason was half worried for her and half worried for the card he gave her.  
He got up and went out to look for her. He looked in every store of the first floor, but he couldn’t find her. He went to the second floor and repeated the same process. He walked around for another hour maybe, he looked at his watch again. 2pm already. They didn’t have much time to get to the museum, it closed at 5pm if it was like the one he used to visit when he was a kid in Gotham.  
There was one place where he hadn’t looked: the hair salon. He slowly made his way to the place. The big glass windows let him see who was inside of the shop. He didn’t see Starfire in any seat, nor in the counter or in the back. Still, this was his last chance, so he entered. The woman at the reception greeted him and asked if he wanted to get a haircut. He shook his head and kept looking around. A blonde woman saw him and approached him laughing. “Now you must be the boyfriend”, he looked at her confused. “I am looking for a girl mh... she has green eyes and-“, the woman cut him off and put an arm around his shoulders as she pulled him to the back of the salon where there was a white closed door. “Your girl is right here”, as the woman said that, the door opened. Starfire came out of the backroom. She was wearing a short pink dress with strawberries all over it, white combat boots, her fully green eyes looked human, but they were still green. Her red hair was dark pink now and she had curled it just a little bit, so it fell gracefully past her shoulders. He was more than surprised, he was speechless, he was blushing for sure and his heart was beating faster again. “Fuck”, he thought as his feelings took over his whole body. “Oh! Jason, you were wrong when you said that I could change anything I wanted instantly. It took much longer”, she complained. Starfire walked out of the bathroom and went back to the seat where her other things were. She had changed her backpack for a pink one in which she kept all her secrets and now her purple uniform.  
The hairdressers laughed at Jason’s surprised expression. He turned around to look at Starfire, but he didn’t move from the spot where the woman left him. “Go, kid or you’ll lose her”, he heard from another hairdresser. Starfire took her things and she walked to the counter. Jason finally moved; he almost ran to her.   
After paying, the two teenagers walked out of the place. “You look... What is the world that Beast Boy uses?”, she asked putting her backpack on. “Oh yes! You look cool”, she smiled at him. He hadn’t said a word still and there were a lot of words that he wanted to say, but he couldn’t. “I like your jacket; it looks glorious on you. Do you like my dress?”, he cursed in his mind. Yes, he liked her dress but that wasn’t the only thing that he liked. “You do not like my dress?”, she asked. Her shoulders relaxed and she pouted again. Why was she being like this? Why was she acting like this? What did she want from him? “I like it, I... You look beautiful, Starfire”, that last sentence came out so softly that only she could hear it since she was just next to him. “Oh, thank you, friend!”, she hugged him, stopping them in the middle of the hall. When she let go of him, he felt his cheeks burning. He cleared his throat. “I wish to show this dress to Robin”, as she said that he felt a familiar feeling: jealousy. He had felt this for a while know, especially because of Dick. “We have to hurry, or we won’t get there in time”. He changed the conversation. Starfire pulled him to a hall that conducted to the emergency stairs. There was no one there. She took off her backpack and opened it. He waited, looking at her, taking in every detail of her face. He wanted to remember this moment with her alone even if it wasn’t special to her.  
She showed him the button she took from Red S’s belt. He took it. Their eyes met as she extended her right hand and he held it on his right one. He stepped forward, closing the distance between them. She smiled once again and lifted him from the ground, making her way out through a window. He pushed the button making them invisible to those around them. Jason didn’t see her either, he could only feel her warm skin through his hand. And the wind. He could hear her giggling here and there. That was enough for him to imagine her smile, her hair and her face full of joy.   
When they landed on a side of the museum, he pushed the button again. There she was. Her hair covered her face and she was laughing as she tried to push it away. He put the button in his pocket and helped her uncover her face. It was her hair. He thought it was a wig, but it was in fact her soft hair. “So, you will have pink hair from now on?”, he asked when he could see her eyes again. She shook her head. “It is not permanent. I can wash it off. Do you like it better?”, she asked tilting her head. Another one of those things Starfire did that had an effect on him that he couldn’t put into words. “I like it, but red is your color”, she giggled and now that sound also had that effect on him. “Now, how does this work?”, she looked at the big building beside them. “Haven’t you been on a date or something to the museum?”, she shook her head. “I haven’t been on a- Oh yes! I was in Robin’s date with that Kitten girl. It was a dance that was a date and I did not enjoy it first”, she pouted again. This time Jason took her hand and pulled her to the main entrance.  
They were greeted by a security guard. The first thing that caught Starfire’s attention was the big T-rex skeleton in the middle. She was about to fly to it, but Jason pulled her closer to him. “No flying, Starfire”, he whispered. “But Beast Boy-“, she pleated pouting once more. “That’s not him, it’s a skeleton from a real dinosaur”, her eyes grew bigger and she ran to it. She walked in circles around it and only stopped when she saw a screen with a text about the history of that skeleton. She read it. While she read the text to Jason, he looked around. He counted the guards, the cameras and the workers. He even counted the public, there were a lot of kids since it was a Sunday. “They do not exist anymore? They did not mention that Beast Boy can turn into different types of dinosaurs”, she complained poking the screen trying to correct it. “Let’s move”. Jason pulled her away once more.  
They spent hours walking around, she read everything she could, even the emergency signs. Meanwhile, he kept looking for the cameras, keeping track of every detail that could be useful to Slade.  
On the basement of the museum, there was an exhibition about aliens. They detailed how the most famous ones came to earth and there was a miniature replica of the ship that brought Starfire to Earth. The Gordanian’s ship. Her eyes lit up and she held her right hand up with a starbolt ready to blow the replica. “Hey! Calm down, it’s not real. It’s like a toy”, he grabbed her hand. She hid the starbolt so he wouldn’t get hurt when he touched her. “They used me like a toy. They experimented on me and they hurt my people”, her eyes went back to normal and he could see tears starting to fill those emeralds up. She had probably burned the contacts, he figured. Jason slowly put down her hand, still holding it in his. He sighed and looked at her, not knowing what he could say to make her feel better, what she had just told him was horrible and there was no possible way that he could compete against the pain they caused her. Her tears started falling down her cheeks and she just let her head down. He hugged her, putting his arms around her waist and she wrapped her arms around his neck. She sobbed in his chest for a while until she felt like the pain had washed off, at least for now. Then, she looked at him again, stepping away to see his face. “Thank you, X... Apologies, Jason. I feel better now, and I must thank you for being a good friend to me”, Jason just smiled. He didn’t know what to say to that too, but he couldn’t think about it for much longer because she leaned in and put a soft kiss on his right cheek. He immediately froze again. Those same new feelings came back. It felt like he had something going on in his stomach, but it wasn’t painful, it wasn’t uncomfortable either. And his heart was beating faster. Also, his cheeks were probably red, at least a brighter tone than his regular pale color. He wanted to do something. He wanted to kiss her back but not on the cheek. What if he just leaned in and did it? It wouldn’t be a bad thing? Would it? She smiled at him and turned away. He was so focused on her that he missed the man that came in to announce that they would closing in 10 minutes. She nodded and went back to tell him. “We must get back to the lodge. Are we done with the checking of the security system?”, she asked. “Yes”, he walked to the door and she followed him. The two went back to the entrance. He looked around once more just in case he missed something. She was looking around too and when they got out of the museum she sighed. “I had so much fun, that I did not get to do the checking as well as I wished to do”, she confessed, her shoulders fell back down, and she pouted. Once again, he wanted to kiss her. “Robin always says that to remain focused is a great ability. I must say that sadly I lack that ability”, she giggled. There he was, Robin. There was no way that Jason could have Starfire. There was no way that he could kiss Starfire. She could only think of Robin. Robin this, Robin that. It felt like a harsh reminder that he needed to get back to his side of this game.  
“You should get back to the lodge, I will get home on my own”, she looked shocked at his statement, maybe a bit sad? “Are you sure?”, she asked. Did she want him to stay? No, there was no way. “Yes, don’t let me keep you away from your Robin”, Jason handed her the button from Red S’s suit. She looked confused now. Maybe a bit angry? “Are you okay?”, she asked as she saved the button in her backpack. Now he was confused. If she was angry, why would she worry about him? He ignored her. “Jason, please, did I say something wrong? Is it Robin?”. Touché. “No, Starfire, it’s your Robin”, he turned around and ran away from her, she didn’t follow him this time. He was right, it was her Robin. That’s why he had to do it, he had to become the new one if he wanted a chance on a new life.  
Starfire sat on a bench in the park until it got dark. Something about looking ‘normal’ made her feel different. Nobody recognized her, she didn’t have to fight crime or be with a masked Robin. She wanted to have a day like this one but with him, no masks, no powers. Just Dick and Koriand’r or maybe Kory with the human eyes.  
She walked through the park until it started raining. She quickly tried to run for cover but there was nowhere to go where she was standing, so she stayed there. The water started washing the pink dye off her hair. She looked at it as she returned to her red-haired self. The dress got wet and she could almost feel her uniform back on her skin. She clocked the backpack, it was time to go home.  
She walked through the park, then she ran and then she flew. The cold normally affected her powers, so she flew slowly until she reached the tower. She landed on the main entrance. She felt tired, she felt sad and because of that, she felt weak. Starfire entered the code on the panel at the door. There she saw her teammates; they were looking at her with confused stares.  
Starfire entered into the first floor. She stopped just two steps away from the door. “Star, we have to talk”, Robin started. He had his mask on and his voice sounded sad? No, that wasn’t it. Angry? Not at all. What was it? What could he be feeling? Why was it so difficult to know his feelings? Oh right. She knew what he was feeling, at least what it sounded like. He sounded disappointed.  
“Where were you, Star?”, Cyborg’s voice sounded disappointed too. “I...”, there was no way she could tell them she went to the lodge, that Slade was there, that Red X was there and then she had a date with the last one in a museum. Was it a date? That’s what it looked like. Like those movies she was always watching that Beast Boy passionately hated. Why couldn’t she have a date with the one she wanted to? “Where?”, Beast Boy sounded disappointed. “I was mh...”, could she tell them about the pink hair? What about the lenses? And the dress? She looked down. Her dress was all wet. “Tell us, Starfire”, Raven sounded disappointed. “I went shopping”, she tried fixing her wet dress. She wanted Robin to see her in that dress so badly and now he had seen her, but he didn’t say anything. Was it so bad?  
“Look, Starfire...”, Robin walked up to her. The way he said her name sounded like how her mom used to call her before telling her to go to her room because she had done something bad. And in this case, she really had done something bad. “We saw you flying off today, you didn’t just fly away from the tower, you disappeared...”, he paused. He was really struggling to say what he wanted to say, but she already knew. And she was struggling too but she had too much pain inside to let it out. Robin looked away from her. Why couldn’t he look at her? “You hate me”, her shoulders fell, she looked down and sighed. “No, Starfire. We just want to know how you did that because...”, he paused again. Did she break Robin again? “Because you looked like Red X”, Beast Boy pointed out from behind Robin. “And after the weird encounter we had with him we wanted to know if you, mh...”, Cyborg paused too. Raven walked up to her. “Starfire is there any chance that you are working with Red X on something?”, the Tamaranean stepped back and they all looked at her like she had just confessed. “I am not”, she immediately responded, looking back up at them. Her eyes lit up for a second, but her feelings were too confusing for her to be just as angry as she needed to light them up for good. “Then why did you disappear just like he does?”, Robin asked. He came close to her once more. She sighed. Why? The reality was that she did work with him and it got worse because he also was working with Slade. She couldn’t tell them about Slade, she had to protect her planet, and this was the best way. But Red X. Jason was different. He somehow had helped Robin once. Maybe she could make them see him as she did. As her friend. “Robin, you know he is not just a bad person. He helped us once. And when I needed it, he helped me too”, she explained tearing up. Maybe it looked like she was crying because of what she was about to tell them. Maybe they figured she was going through something. But the fact was that she was crying because she was about to lie to her best friends.  
“When we fought him at the building he told me that he wanted to mess with us, with you Robin and with me that night that he stole the T-ship apart from taking it. But when he did not see me, he tried once again at the building. But he noticed that I was not myself and he asked why I wasn’t there the other night. I- I just told him the truth and he did not know how to react. He just listened so I continued talking. I was so sad at that moment that I told him that I wanted to disappear. That is when he touched my face, which Beast Boy saw from the window. But he didn’t just touch my face, he gave me something else. He gave me a button like the one in his belt and he told me to use it in case I felt like that again. That is why I used it today and it felt well... I did disappear. I felt better. I felt free”. At least she wasn’t totally lying. When she looked back at her teammates they all looked shocked.  
“Star... I am so sorry you felt like that”, Cyborg was the first one to talk. “Me too, I didn’t know, or I would have been there for you”, Beast Boy joined in. “Starfire, we all would have been there for you. I am so sorry. I should have felt something. I should have helped you”, Raven came closer. Her three teammates hugged her and when they moved away Robin stood still in front of the alien princess. He walked up to her, he put his right hand on her cheek, caressing it with his thumb. “Starfire, you should have never felt that way. You brought us together. You are the heart of the Teen Titans. You can’t leave us. You can’t leave me”. Beast Boy hugged Raven’s right arm. “I am gonna cry”, he whispered. “Kiss her already”, Cyborg yelled. “We are not looking”, Beast Boy covered Raven’s eyes and she tried to push him away.  
Robin kissed Starfire’s forehead, then he kissed her nose and when he was about to kiss her lips, he stopped. “I love your dress, Star”, she blushed. Her eyes closed as soon his lips were on hers.  
The rest of the team cheered for them. Well, Cyborg and Beast Boy did. Raven was still trying to get BB’s hand out of her face and when she did, she smiled at the sight of the couple in front of them. “I’ll get the kids out of here”, she took the shape shifter’s hand and dragged him to the elevator, pushing Cyborg in the way.   
When Robin’s lips left Starfire’s, she opened her eyes. “Is it too late to ask you and your dress out on a dinner night?”, Dick asked softly. Her teammates were already gone so the silence that surrounded them made his voice echo a little bit in the big entrance of the tower. “Robin, would you please give me some time to do the fixing of myself?”. She tilted her head. He smiled at the sight of her cuteness. “I’ll wait, Star”, she smiled back. “And Robin, could I get a date with Dick Grayson?”, she tilted her head to the other side. He chuckled. “Anything else?”, he asked jokingly, and she just shook her head. “Then Koriand’r and Dick are going on a date”, she clapped in excitement lifting herself just a bit from the ground. She held his hand and took him to his room as fast as she could. When she let go of him, she flew in small circles. He had never seen her this excited, he thought. And she got excited easily. “Go get ready, Star, or we will be dinning at midnight”, she nodded with her eyes closed. “I must get ready for our date”, she said that last bit slowly and then she flew away to her room. He stayed there for a bit just thinking about her. He was happy that she felt better, but he was sad that she felt so bad in the first place. When he was about to enter the room, he stepped on something watery. It was a tag from the store were Starfire had bought the dress. It said that it was a limited collection from the mall outside Jump City. It was not the mall were Starfire regularly went. There was something about it that made him wanna check it out, but he had a date to get to, so he rushed into his room and put it away with other paperwork he had from his investigations.  
Back in Starfire’s room, she was trying her best to dry her dress. She had put the backpack in her closet, and she wasn’t paying attention to it. She was trying her best to get her outfit to look as good as it did in the afternoon.  
Then she looked at herself in the mirror. She looked almost like she did back in the mall. She turned to the door and when she was about to leave, she heard it. A beeping interrupted her happy thoughts. It was Slade. She ran to it and opened it. Slade appeared on the main screen. “Children...”, Red X was in the call too. “Plan A has failed. I am entering Plan B but I need one thing more. I need some things from the Titan’s tower that will help me contain your sister and I need the Tower to be empty in case she decides to attack you”. “I have to tell my friends”, Starfire answered worried. “No, we need to keep your friends out of this, so take them away from the Tower. Your sister has decided to come with me to Earth and I will try to debilitate her with Plan B, so she doesn’t put Earth in danger. But I need you to obey me or else the plan will fail too and then she will invade the Earth with no mercy. Leave the Tower and turn the security system off. We will get to Earth at midnight, be prepared”.


	6. The Last Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin, Starfire and her strawberry dress finally get to have the date she’s been dreaming of. It’s not under the best circumstances but at least she gets to know a little more of how Robin feels about her. But when Slade and Blackfire arrive on Earth, the Tamaranean princess is reminded of what her live has become.

Chapter 6: The last date

Starfire sighed after closing the communicator. She knew what she had to do. She peeked out of her room; Robin wasn’t there. She flew to the security room and disabled everything. Then she ran to the main room. Cyborg, Beast Boy and Raven were there. Robin came in, he was wearing blue jeans, snickers, a white t-shirt and a varsity red jacket on top. He was still wearing his mask. “Star, where were you?”, he stopped to look at her. The rest of the team looked at both of them in awe. “Dude! Why are you two looking that cool?”, Beast Boy yelled running to the couple. “Wow, Star, you look like a model”, Cyborg joined in. “You look like a human”, he joked as he looked at Robin. “Are we going out?”, Beast Boy asked excited. “Let me get my cool outfit”, he was about to walk out but Raven stopped him. “We are not, they are”, she slowly spoke to the shape shifter trying to signal to him that the couple was about to go on a date. “Oh...”, Beast Boy laughed nervously. “Star, you look amazing”, Robin pointed out. “Thank you, Robin and Cyborg. Beast Boy is right”, she clapped excitedly again. “He is?”, Robin and Cyborg asked. “Am I?”, BB joined in. “Guess there is a first time for everything”, Raven blatantly stated. “Yes! Since I have recently did the opening of my heart to you, my friends, I wish to continue by showing you a place that I have been going to when I was feeling the sadness so I can make the happiest memories with you there”, she lifted herself up. “But, Star, I thought we were-“, she cut him off. “Let me just-“, Cyborg was about to leave maybe to go check the security room but she grabbed his and Robin’s hand, and flew them away. Raven and Beast Boy followed her through the night sky. There was one hour and a half until Slade and Blackfire landed on Earth when she left the Tower. She was scared of what was coming, but she had to put her friends out of danger. 

They flew through the woods and then landed on the lodge. She knew this was dangerous, but it was the only plan she had and it was a safe place were Blackfire couldn’t find them. Slade didn’t trust Starfire that much, so he hid most of his things when he wasn’t in the lodge. His room was always locked either way and he had taken his computer, weapons, uniforms and everything that could identify him. She didn’t know if Red X had done the same thing, but she guessed he had. He went to lodge before she did, so he should have taken everything. A part of her was still thinking about how he left. She felt guilty for hurting him. But why did she hurt him? And was he even hurt? 

When they landed everyone was amazed by the beautiful house. “Starfire, is this yours?”, Robin asked. “I guess being a hero has its benefits. Can this be our vacations house? Can we have a beach house?”, Beast Boy asked Robin. “We are surrounded by water in our house”, Raven answered before the leader could. “Come in, friends, you will like the inside better”, the Tamaranean hopped to the door. She did the face recognition check at the entrance and the main door opened. The Titans entered after her. They were amazed by the inside too. “Wow, Star, you’ve got taste”, Cyborg pointed out. “I like it”, Raven walked into the dining room, which was all surrounded by glass walls. There was no sign of Slade or Red X. Beast Boy went into the kitchen. “Sweet! There’s tofu”, she didn’t know that, but she was glad. Cyborg sat in the living room and turned on the TV. Raven sat with him as they looked through the different channels. “So, you come here when you want to be alone? How did you find this place?”, Robin asked looking around but still standing by her side. “I was wondering around this area after flying for a while and then I found it. It reminded me of the pictures in the magazines. It was on sale, so I called, and they let me have it as a gift from the city”, she smiled. “It’s almost out of the city”, he mumbled. The mall where she got the dress wasn’t that far from here, he thought. It was closer to the lodge than to the Tower.   
“Where can I ask for my gift from the city?”, Beast Boy entered the conversation, following Robin to the living room as they both admired the place.   
“Isn’t the Tower our gift from the city?”, Raven asked looking at Robin. “Cyborg made the tower”, Beast Boy cut in. “I made it, but I didn’t pay for it. I asked Robin for the things I needed to build it and he gave them to me”, Beast Boy gasped dramatically. “What? How come you don’t buy me the things I ask for? Like the moped! I had to work for tofu aliens to get it and I don’t even have it now!”, he shook his head, acting like he was crying. “Because I didn’t pay for those things that Cyborg asked me to buy”, Raven moved a little bit closer to Cyborg as Beast Boy sat by her left side. “Then your daddy bought them?”, Beast Boy raised his right eyebrow as he teased the masked boy who stood in front of him. “This discussion is so mature…”, Raven rolled her eyes, crossing her arms on her chest. “He is not my…”, Beast Boy started laughing. “Man, it’s okay if your millionaire daddy payed for everything. Can we send him a thank you card?”, Cyborg joined into the teasing. “He didn’t pay for the Tower and it isn’t a gift from the city. It was given to us by the league”, Robin explained, sitting down on the seat next to BB. “What? Who are those league dudes? Or dudettes?”, Beast Boy moved forward pushing Raven lightly when he did. “It sounds important and you are not the right person to know that type of information”, Raven pointed out. “Dude! I just think it’s unfair that Robin gets to know the cool stuff, the grown-up stuff and we are left in the dark”, Robin moved forward too, still sitting on his seat. “It’s a long story”. Robin sighed. “Besides, you are the one with access to a grown-up with the mask. Sounds logical to me, I don’t think there’s anything else to explain”, Cyborg turned his attention back to the TV. “Oh, come on! I want to meet your dad, at least take us for a vacation in... Gotham”, Beast Boy whispered the name of the city trying to sound mysterious. Gotham! Robin looked up to the kitchen, he didn’t see Starfire where he left her.

“Next time you save the world from tofu aliens, I’ll take you”, Robin jokingly said as he stood up. He looked around the kitchen and the dining room. The bathroom was empty too. Then he walked to the other side of the lodge, to the corridor where the bedrooms were. The first door was Starfire’s bedroom. He saw a couple of soda cans on the floor but no sign of Starfire. Then he walked into the next room: there she was. 

Starfire was sitting on the edge of the bed, her back facing the door. In her hand she held a post card with a picture of Gotham. On the back, Red X had left her a note that said, “in case you were wondering - X”. She was amazed by how much the city resembled Jason; he was just like that. Kind of dark, but more intriguing than scary. 

“Star?”, she heard Robin’s voice calling her name. She didn’t want to, but she hid the picture inside the top of her dress. Lucky for her, it was not that big of a post card. Then she turned around. “Hello, Robin”, she smiled at her friend.

“So, our date...”, Robin mentioned as he entered the room. She stood up and took his hand, guiding him out of the room. 

She took him to the front patio, pulling him by his hand as she giggled. When they arrived, she showed him one of her biggest smiles, making her eyes smile too. Then she sat down on the middle of the grass. He sat next to her. She was sitting with her legs flexed to the side, just like a princess would do. Robin sat with his legs stretched out and his hands by the sides of his body. “Are you okay, Star?”, he asked. She nodded. “I am so sorry that you felt like you said you did, Star. I really am”. She looked to the night sky. “When you started to go away without saying anything to me, I felt left out. You are my best friend and I didn’t know why you were leaving or if you were coming back”, he sighed and let his head down. “I was scared of losing you”, he finished, and she turned her head to look at him. “Robin...”, she said in a soft tone. “That day on the Ferris wheel, when the robot took you, I was so angry that it took you away from me, from us. But that night, when I caught you flying away, I felt something else. You wanted to leave because we didn’t notice that you were struggling with your sister’s visit. I’ve never forgotten that day in particular. You are so strong and one of your biggest strengths is in your emotions. I am not like that, you know. So, it was hard for me to understand how much something could emotionally affect you to the point where you wanted to leave the team. But when I got it, I promised myself I would be there for you. To take care of you and protect your heart too. That’s why it pains me to hear that you have been struggling to that point”, she moved her hand closer to his and put her fingers on top of his. “Robin, you are the most amazing friend I could have asked for. You do not have to say sorry”, she assured him in her usual caring way of speaking. “Starfire?”, he moved a little bit closer to her. “Yes, Robin?”, he turned his face to the side, to check what were the rest of the team up to. Starfire looked back at the lodge too. The trio were sleeping on the couch in front of the TV. Raven sat in the middle of the two boys. Beast Boy had his head on Raven’s shoulder. Cyborg was sleeping with his mouth open which made Robin and Starfire laugh.   
“I think they were having too much fun before”, Robin jokingly added. “Are you, Robin? Are you enjoying this night?”, the alien princess asked, turning back his attention to the Boy Wonder. “I am, Star. I am enjoying this night with you”, as he said that she blushed. “Are you making those happy memories you wanted to make?”, Robin asked back. “I am. I wish to make many more happy memories with you”, she lowered her head, trying to hide her blushed cheeks. “We will, Star, there are many more adventures to come, many more battles to fight and places to go”. “Are there also many more dates to go on?”, she lifted her head up once again. Yes, she was blushing but at this point she didn’t mind showing him how he made her feel. “This is our first date”, he pointed out and now he was blushing too. “Not quite the first. You went to a date with Kitten and perhaps you could say I did the tagging along”, she giggled at the end of her sentence. “I guess you could say that. Do you think we make a better couple than Kitten and Fang?”. She laughed out loud. “We most surely do” and then she realized what he just asked her. “Robin?”, his eyes were looking at the sky at that moment, but he turned to her when she called for him, like he usually did. “Yes, Starfire?”. She repeated the question he made in her mind. He did say “couple”, did he? There was only one way to find out what he meant. “Robin are we a couple?”, she asked and he smiled. “Would you want- “, as he was about to finish asking her something that he had been wishing to for so long, a big bright light flew through the dark sky. It was her que.   
She didn’t want to do it; she didn’t want to leave him. Not like this. Not after what he was about to ask her. But this was her duty. “Trouble!”, the leader immediately declared. “What was that?”, Robin stood up and so did she. The Tamaranean lifted herself, levitating by his side. “Robin, I have to go”. He was shocked and confused. “Why? Do you know what that was?”, she just shook her head. “It is nothing, believe me. Robin, I have to leave”, she spoke softly, closing her eyes at the end, but he grabbed her hand, trying to keep her from leaving him. “But, Star, we were- “, she pulled her hand out of his. She hugged herself and then she flew away. 

What she didn’t notice is that when she left, something of hers fell into Robin’s hands. He picked up what looked like a piece of paper but when he came close to it, he noticed it was a picture of Gotham. He knew she had been curious about the city, but why did she have a picture of it? He turned back the post card just to find a handwritten note signed just X. Was it that same X? It couldn’t be. 

Robin went inside the lodge and woke up the rest of the team. “What’s up, man? Isn’t it like 2am?”, Beast Boy tried to go back to sleep, but Raven pushed him away before he could put his head back on her shoulder. “What is it?”, Cyborg asked worriedly. “It’s Star. She’s gone”, the leader couldn’t hide the sadness in his voice. “Again?”, Raven moved so she could be sitting on the edge of the couch. “What do you mean she’s gone? She’s been taken?”, Cyborg tried again. Robin shook his head. “Something appeared on the sky and then she said she had to leave. When she did, this fell from her dress”, he gave the post card to Cyborg. Beast Boy and Raven got close to look at it. When Cyborg turned it around Beast Boy gasped. “Dude! My theory, Starfire and Red X, they are working together”, Raven pushed him back to his seat. “How can we be sure that this X means Red X?”, Raven asked. She was angry, she wouldn’t believe that Starfire was working with Red X, that she would be capable of stealing the T-Ship. “Yeah, man, what if it’s just a note from someone else or fan mail”, Robin sighed. “This note is from someone who knows her. At least that’s what I can tell from the message. And the X, well... I am not sure. It could be him; it could be someone else or it could be...”, he shook his head again. “Who else could it be?”, Beast Boy insisted, and Robin backed away to the door. “There’s only one way to find out”, the team followed him. Raven took Cyborg and Beast Boy shifted into a pterodactyl to help Robin fly back to the Tower.

Starfire made a quick stop at the Tower. She flew as fast as she could and took the communicator Slade gave her out of the backpack. She waited for a minute, then he called. “Children, I am on Earth. We have landed on a deserted area out of Jump City. But we need something from the museum. Red X, I need you to go get everyone out of there. Starfire, I need you to be Red S again, you have to get in through the secret door in the basement. It’s activated through a button that’s under the replica of the Gordanian ship. There you must find a red diamond. I need it to lure your sister to a trap. Get it out of there and meet me at the lodge. And Starfire. Don’t let your friends stop you. We are close to getting Tamaran and Earth to safety. Are we clear?”, Starfire struggled to answer. “Yes, Slade, we are clear”. She slowly nodded. “Good. Then go do as I told you”, he ended the call. “Star?”, Red X called her name softly. “Are you sure of this?”, she sighed. “I have to do this. It’s my duty to protect Tamaran as the princess of my planet and as a hero, I have to save Earth from my sister. I shall see you there”, she closed the communicator. 

She took Red S’s uniform out of the backpack and put it on. The reflection on the mirror showed her something she wasn’t ready to see. This suit, it’s darkness, as much as she wanted to believe otherwise, it suited her well. She touched the cape and hid behind it. It was just like Robin’s, as strong as his cape but it meant something else. 

The princess clipped the communicator to the belt on her suit. She looked through the window, a flashing light coming from just outside the city caught her attention. How much could Slade keep her sister from hurting her new home? She had to go. Starfire clocked herself with the utility belt and flew out of the Tower.

The Titans entered the tower just moments after Starfire left. Robin ran to her room; the team came after him. He entered the bedroom and noticed she wasn’t there, but she had left her things on the floor. 

“Someone broke into the Tower before we arrived, I checked the security system and it was deactivated just like the other night” Cyborg was the first to arrive after Robin. The leader kneeled next to the pink backpack Starfire had left behind. It had the same tag the dress did. He lifted it up and checked inside. He found her uniform there and a picture of Blackfire wearing the same headpiece Starfire had when she came to Earth. Beast Boy and Raven came into the room. “Where’s Star?”, Cyborg noticed the worried look on Robin’s face. “What is that?”, Raven took the picture to check it. “I thought Blackfire was in some alien jail”, Beast Boy joined the empath. “And why would Star leave her uniform?”, Cyborg asked. “Maybe she left it because she got a new one”, the shape shifter replied, his voice falling into a soft whisper at the end. Their communicators alerted them of trouble. Robin opened it up immediately, wishing Starfire was the one calling but she wasn’t. “Titans, trouble! The History Museum is under attack”. 

Starfire got to the museum just after Red X, he was already trying to take down the guards to kick them out of the building. She joined him as he ran to the security room. “What are you doing here? You have to go to the basement!”, he yelled at her as she ran by his side. “I cannot do it”, she whispered. “What?”, he entered the room and closed the door behind them. “I am not quite sure how to use the suit and I did not get to do the checking of the cameras properly”, she let her head down. Red X was disabling the cameras using a virus he stole from Cyborg’s room as they spoke. “Look, Star, you have to try to do it. It’s not like I can pass you all I know in a second”, he shrugged. He disabled the lights and they were only illuminated by the emergency power that was on the hallway outside of the security room. “This will buy us some time at least”, he turned around and he found her closer to him. “There might be a way for you to pass me all you know. I do not know if it will work as I have only used it to learn a language, which is the intent of this process. But, it may be successful in transferring other knowledge”, she uncovered her mouth. “What language? What are you talking about?”. They heard steps coming their way. She lifted his mask just enough for his lips to be uncovered too and then she did it. She kissed him. He froze when he felt her warm lips on hers. His mind went blank. On the other side, Starfire’s was very busy full of misleading thoughts. There was something that made her want to get closer to Jason. The mystery that surrounded his identity, his hometown, why he became Red X. Everything about it had a different taste, like his lips did too. It tasted like danger and somehow she found out she had been craving to feel that flavor. 

The Titans slowed down when they heard muted whispers coming from a room. They could barely see as they got further away from the emergency light on the corridor. The whispers came from an office with a glass window. Robin carefully got closer to the window and saw two dark silhouettes. The team joined the leader. They all noticed what was happening. “I told you she was his girlfriend”, Beast Boy pointed out. “Well, if she’s not Star, then who is she?”, Cyborg added. 

Starfire stepped back and covered her mouth again. Jason shook his head. “Starfire what did you just do?”, he asked in a whisper as he covered his face too. Before she could say anything, Robin kicked the door open. The dark uniformed teens looked at each other. “Sorry to interrupt your date”, the leader announced. “Oh, I am the one who’s sorry”, Red X threw a gas bomb to escape through the glass window with Starfire by his side. They both teletransported back to the main hall, were the skeleton was.

The guards ran to meet the pair. They were an easy target for them, the pair threw X shaped gas bombs, blades and explosives. X even pinned a couple of them and stole one of their laser guns to point at the Titans. “So, can you tell me what was that?”, X asked as he took out one of Cyborg’s laser devices, that he stole while the Titans were at the lodge, and he quickly added it to the gun. She opened her mouth to explain why she kissed him but she froze at the sight of her teammates standing in front of them. They were in their regular formation. Robin was first, Cyborg by his side, Beast Boy was next and then Raven was levitating ready to use her powers. She was the only one left out of the team. “Teen Titans go!”, Robin yelled, and the team came to fight them. 

X shot Robin with the gun making him fall to the ground. “Robin”, Starfire mumbled under her breathe, nobody heard her. “Hey, are you angry because we crashed your day night?”, BB yelled as he ran to Red X. The thief freed his right hand to threw an X into BB’s mouth as he shape shifted into a hippo. The green hero tried to take it out, but he couldn’t. Starfire was frozen, she didn’t know what to do. Raven came for her and she only avoided her using the clocking technology on the suit. Red X jumped on top of Cyborg and stuck an X on his face to cover his eyes before he could unload his sonic cannon so when he did it hit Raven and it made her fall. Robin stood up again and threw a birdarang that hit X on the shoulder, cutting his suit and his skin just enough for him to let out an “Ouch!, I knew you had it in you bird boy”, he joked as he ran to fight the Boy Wonder. The fight between Jason and Dick caught Star’s attention. Raven saw this and she pushed her away using her telekinetic powers. Starfire fell to the floor. Red X noticed, and he immediately stopped Robin throwing him an explosive X to make him fall to the other side, then he picked up the gun he used before to shoot Raven and move her away from Starfire. X ran to the alien princess, she looked up at him. “Sorry to interrupt again”, the Titan’s leader threw another birdarang at Red X cutting his other arm. Starfire gasped. “Hey! You are scaring my…friend”, he laughed at the insinuation. Robin ran to him and they started fighting again. Starfire stood up and pulled out one of the explosives packed in her utility belt. “Hey, cutie, I got this”. Cutie? Robin had heard him said that word in front of him before. “Mind getting what we need?” She backed away slowly, still not moving to the basement.

Robin pulled out his BoStaff and Red X clocked himself to avoid getting hit. He then appeared from the back of the masked hero and took the BoStaff away from him. Then he pushed Robin to the side with it. “You should have packed one of this on this suit”, he pointed out. Robin got back up and this time he threw himself at Red X. This was going to take too long. What if Slade couldn’t keep her sister under control? Starfire had to do something. She closed her eyes and threw the explosive. X covered himself with the cape and so did she. All the Titans were on the floor. “So”, Red X let go of Robin’s BoStaff. “About that kiss…”. Beast Boy had finally freed himself, so he ran to Red X turned into a bull. He shoved the thief, but X immediately shot him back with the laser gun which hurt Beast Boy badly, he ended up unconscious on the floor and Raven levitated to help him. Starfire gasped once more, she walked to BB. “Guess we’ll talk later, S, time to go”, he pointed at the door that lead to the basement. Cyborg came at X, trying to punch him in the face but Red X avoided the hit again and again. 

Starfire walked away, looking back at X worriedly but nobody could see her face behind the mask. Robin stood up and ran after Red S, taking his BoStaff with him. X noticed it again and kicked Cyborg in the stomach to make him back away. Then, he teleported himself to the hall that led to the stairs. X closed the basement door pushing the button on the side, which he noticed in his visit that afternoon. He then sealed the doors using the laser on his glove. Jason ran through the stairs and found Robin meters away from him. He took out his grapple and caught Robin’s arm, pulling him back to himself. “Going somewhere?”, he asked. Robin took out a birdarang and used it to cut the rope and jump away from him. “After her”, the Titan’s leader responded. “You always do that, don’t you?”, Red X followed him as they both went into the basement. 

Starfire was already in front of the alien exhibition. She carefully lifted the replica of the Gordanian ship up and waited to see if anything happened. It did. Red lasers appeared in the rest of the room, the kind that you would see in a spy movie, she thought. She pushed the button on the base where the replica was. A secret door opened in the middle of the wall in front of her. 

“Freeze!”, Robin yelled at her and she did. “You don’t have to do this. Whatever Red X is promising you, he can’t be trusted”, her best fried continued. Starfire turned around. “I won’t hurt you”, he would never hurt her if he knew who she was. “I can help you”, Robin extended his hand through one of the holes in between the red lasers. “She doesn’t need your help”, Red X pushed Robin to the lasers and Starfire couldn’t help to gasp. She covered her mouth. Robin groaned in pain, he laid there face down. The Boy Wonder slowly stood up and then he moved through the spaces in between the lasers to get to Starfire. “Fuck, quit it, Robin!”, Red X snapped. “Never”, the Titan kept going and Starfire just backed away into the secret room. 

Red X used his other grabble to pull Robin through the lasers and keep it in there, making him groan in pain again. “X, stop! You are not a bad guy”, Robin barely could speak but he did his best. “I can be that”, X replied. A loud noise made Red X lose his grip. The other Titans ran to the basement and attacked X. Robin quickly got back to trying to catch Red S. 

Beast Boy pushed Red X into the lasers, putting him through the same pain he had put Robin through. “S! He’s coming!”, X yelled before giving up into the pain.

She heard him and clocked herself, she used her cape to cover herself and bent down, hiding behind the podium in which the diamond Slade wanted was displayed. 

Red X threw explosives to the points were the lasers came out from. “Any other plan?”, he asked at the Titans. “Azarat-“, he cut Raven sticking an X to her mouth and two others on her hands to keep her from using her powers. Cyborg almost hit him with his sonic cannon, but X clocked himself and teleported himself to the back of the half robot to mess with his system. “Learned a trick from the creator”, he laughed as he did that to Cyborg. Beast Boy shifted into a tiger and scratched X on his chest. He groaned and jumped back. He then ran into the secret room and BB flew after him now shifting into an eagle. Before X could enter, Beast Boy shifted into a gorilla and caught him by his leg. X threw him some explosives to the face making him turn back to his human shape. Then he threw him one of his signature sticky Xs to pin the green hero to the floor. After he did that, he threw a gas bomb and tele transported to the secret room.

He appeared in the room and shut the door from the inside with a button next to the entrance, then he sealed it with his laser once again. Robin was searching for Red S using his flashlight. “Now, where were we?”, Red X asked in his regular playful tone. The Boy Wonder took out his BoStaff and ran to him. They fought for a while, pushing each other from wall to wall. Starfire stood up slowly to check on them. Neither of them was really looking at her. 

She took out one her X shaped blades and used it to cut the glass that covered the jewel. She slowly took the round red diamond, hid it in her suit and backed away, looking around for an escape route. The kiss hadn’t really worked out and either way, none of them had entered that room so they had to improvise. Red X noticed that she had the diamond and tried to shove Robin off himself, but the Titan wouldn’t give up. So, he gave back what Robin did before. He used one of his blades to cut his arm and stopped him by putting his hand over the fresh wound. Robin yelled in pain. Starfire couldn’t help herself; she ran to the two and pulled Robin away from X throwing him to the floor behind her. Red X froze. This wasn’t on the plan; this wasn’t what Slade told her to do. Did she care that much for Robin?

Robin tried to sit down and when he did, he noticed something on Red S’s belt. It was a communicator with an S on top and he knew what that S meant. “S, we have to go!”, X yelled at her. The Boy Wonder immediately stood up and threw a birdarang to Red X, then he threw three ammunition disks. Red X got hit and backed away. Then Robin pulled Red S to the side to get to X. He used his BoStaff to push it into X’s abdomen, then he kicked him on his leg to make him lose balance and finally punched him in the face when he fell to the floor. Starfire was frozen now. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t stop Robin; she couldn’t hurt him. But Jason was getting hurt. 

The alien princess moved her hand and put it on top of her belt, she grabbed an X shaped blade. Her hands were shaking. Red X groaned in pain as Robin hit him on the stomach. “S, go!”, X mumbled in pain. Starfire lifted her hand aiming at Robin. The masked hero put his feet on X’s chest, keeping him down then he ripped his utility belt and threw it to the front, where Red S stood frozen. Red X stayed on the floor.

“I know you are working for Slade. Tell me where he is and I will let you both go!”, Robin walked to Red S. She stepped back letting the blade fall to the ground. “I know you are scared. You don’t have to be. I will help you… If you tell me where Slade is and what he wants”. She shook her head as she backed further away from him.

“Leave her alone! Robin!”, X mumbled, too hurt to even speak like he normally did. Robin didn’t answer. He kept coming closer to Red S. “S! Remember!”, she sighed at Jason’s words. He was right. Slade told them that they couldn’t let the Titans stop them. Now, how did she use the suit for this kind of fight? To fight Robin?

She moved her hand back to the utility belt; they were still shaking. “I created that thing, you can’t stop me with that”, Robin pointed out. But she had to try, at least just to make him back away and buy X some time. She took out the first thing she touched; it was a grabble which Robin avoided. Then she threw out blades and he threw them away with his BoStaff. “Just tell me about Slade”, the Boy Wonder insisted. She threw explosives at him and he used his BoStaff to redirect them at Red X. She gasped, as X groaned in pain once more. Her back touched the wall. “Not talking, S?”, Robin asked. He pinned her to the wall using his BoStaff once more. She was still shaking. 

“Let her go! Don’t hurt her!”, Jason yelled, trying to stand up. “Robin! Let her go!”. Robin pulled her utility belt out and threw it next to X’s. “If you want me to let her go, tell me what Slade wants and where I can find him”, the masked hero answered, not even turning back to look at X. “Please! Don’t”, Jason pleaded once more. So, he cared about S much more than he had imagined? He changed plans, he pushed his BoStaff and Starfire let out a muted whine. He couldn’t recognize her voice through it, but Red X tried to stand up once more. “Please, Robin. You’ll regret it”, X insisted. Robin pushed a little harder. “Stop!”, X yelled. The leader pushed just a little bit more and then she pushed him away, he immediately pinned her back to the wall harder, making her gasp once more. “Use your powers!”, X yelled, she shook her head. “Tell me where’s Slade!”, the Boy Wonder sounded furious as he pushed his BoStaff just a bit more. She let out a sigh. She was struggling but she tried kicking him and she noticed her strength wasn’t working like it normally did. “Just tell me!”, Robin insisted pushing a little harder. “Do it! Use your powers”, X tried once more but he couldn’t even stand on his own, he had to rest his body on the wall behind him. She whined again. He pushed, she struggled, he pushed, she struggled, he pushed, she struggled. “Stop! Robin”. Red S let her head fall, she was struggling to breath and she was feeling lightheaded. “Robin! I promise you will regret it; she is…”, Starfire shook her head. “I have to tell him!”, Robin turned to look at him. “What?”, she shook her head. “Robin, she is- “, Starfire pushed Robin with her last bit of strength. He pinned her right back to the wall. “What do you know?”, Robin yelled at her. Red X finally stood up and ran weakly to the two. 

Starfire was almost falling down. Her powers were lacking because of the emotional stress and her endurance was significantly affected by it. She was about to pass out when Red X came in. He unmasked her. “She is Starfire!”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Things are getting crazier in this story. We have at least 4 more chapters to go before we wrap this up. So, get ready for more angst because this chapter is just the tip of what is about to come. Let me know what you think in the comments section please!
> 
> Chapter 7 spoiler: I was listening to Hit Me With Your Best Shot by ADONA while writing the first scene which is the continuation of the ending of EP 6.


	7. Our Last Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: The Teen Titans deal with the aftermath of Starfire’s betrayal. They decide to give her one last chance. When her friends arrive to talk to her someone else joins the party only to ruin it. Will a kiss save her last chance?

Starfire was almost falling down. Her powers were lacking because of the emotional stress and her endurance was significantly affected by it. She was about to pass out when Red X came in. “She is Starfire!”, he said as he pulled the mask off Starfire and he fell back to the floor in front of her. Robin backed away shocked. 

Starfire was breathing heavily, trying to gather her strength back. She looked at Red X, he was bleeding from his arms, the wounds had gotten bigger and he couldn’t stand anymore. He just held her mask on his hand tightly. The alien girl let her head down. “Starfire? Are you working for- “, the door was opened up by Cyborg’s sonic cannon, cutting off Robin’s question. Is that what he noticed first? The rest of the team entered, and they froze at the sight of Starfire in the Red S suit. “Star!”, Beast Boy yelled out loud. “Starfire! Tell me, why are you working for Slade? Is it because of that picture of Blackfire?”, Robin insisted. Blackfire, she had to stop her. She couldn’t lose any more time. “Starfire!”, Cyborg yelled. “What is going on?”, Raven asked horrified. The princess let herself fall to the ground, just steps away from Red X. “Star, please, tell me why you are working for Slade. Did Red X put you up to this?”, Robin tried asking once more. Starfire lifted her head up slowly and took her gloves off. “Is Red X using you? I can- “, Robin slowly moved closer, trying to reach Red X with his hands. Was Slade that important to Robin?

She stood up, extending her right arm with a starbolt ready to blow on her hand. “Leave him alone”, she spoke firmly. The Titans looked scared as they stood there frozen, not knowing what to do. “Starfire, I am just trying to catch Slade and if Red X is working for him then I have to take him down”, Robin tried to explain himself. “You have already done that”, she responded, her eyes were glowing, and her hand had finally stopped shaking. “But I have to take him in to question him about Slade”, Robin tried to come closer once more. “Do not touch him”, her tone was firm again, no cracks even if she felt like crying. “But Slade-“, she cut him off. “Robin, I need you to let him go. Can you do that for me, please?”, she spoke softly, putting her hand down again. “You know I can’t, Star. I have to catch Slade”. His voice cut through her hope. 

She closed her eyes.

“Then, I am sorry”, she opened her eyes fully lit up. She groaned as she gathered all her strength and built a green energy force field around herself and the masked thief. She walked in front of Red X and released her power in an explosion. Her teammates were pushed away because of the blast. She quickly grabbed the utility belts, carried Red X in her arms and flew out of the building.

-

The door automatically opened letting the Teen Titans into the main area of the Tower. They walked in silently. Cyborg and Beast Boy sat on the couch. Raven stood by the window, looking at the dark city in front of her. Robin was the last one to enter. He walked to his teammates and stopped in front of them, trying to get his thoughts in order so he could say something, but it wasn’t working.

“What was that?”, Cyborg was the first one to speak. Nobody replied. “It shouldn’t have happened”, he continued, letting his head fall into his hands. “I should’ve known. I felt her energy. It had changed since that night when Slade poisoned Robin. But I just thought she just felt sad like she said”. Beast Boy stood up after Raven spoke. “Well, I told you all that she was Red S. And what did you do? You didn’t believe me. So there, it shouldn’t have happened because I told you about it but you didn’t take my word for it”, he yelled at the others. “We didn’t believe you because you are not a reliable source”, Raven replied, turning her back to the rest of her team. “And you are?”, the shape shifter clapped back immediately. “Well, they had just stolen the T-Ship I thought that you were just shocked and-“, the green teen cut her off. “You thought that I made it up because I went all coocoo because they stole our T-Ship”, she turned back and walked to him. 

“Stop it both of you. We didn’t believe it because it’s Starfire. She could never hurt us”, Cyborg stood up, pushing the empath and the shape shifter away before their argument got more heated. Robin didn’t know what to say to everything that his teammates where discussing. His mind tried to stay technical, to think critically but there was one thing that didn’t make any sense at all. If she was being forced to work for Slade, why did she kiss Red X? “But she hurt us”, he meant she hurt him, but he couldn’t bring himself to accept that. “And we have to stop her”. 

Beast Boy laughed. “May I remind you that we didn’t “stop you” when you were working with Slade”, he sat back on the couch. “I wasn’t working with Slade”, the leader angrily replied. “Maybe she isn’t working with him either”, Raven sat beside Cyborg. 

Robin was about to speak when his communicator started ringing. He opened it up and saw the major’s face in his screen. “Robin, turn on the news. Jump City is under attack”, the call ended. The leader immediately turned on the TV and tuned in a news channel. On their large screen they saw a video in which Blackfire spoke to the citizens of Jump City declaring that she would become the new ruler of the city and will be taking Earth soon. Slade stood next to her and behind them there was an army of tamaraneans. 

“Do not try to stop me. I will not have mercy on anyone who tries to defeat me. I will be announcing the new rules of Jump City, or may I say of this new Tamaranean colony”. The video ended.

“I can’t believe it”, Beast Boy said. “She wasn’t just working with Slade, she was working with Blackfire to take our planet”, Robin stated as he walked to the screen. “Was this her plan all along?”, he continued. “Are you hearing yourself?”, Cyborg stood up and walked to Robin. “Cyborg, Tamaran is taking over our planet. Don’t you see it?”, the leader asked angrily. “The only thing I see is that you are getting Slade obsessed again. You are not making sense. Starfire didn’t come to Earth to take it, she came to ask for help and we helped her”, the half robot replied. “He’s right. We helped her, we helped you when Slade took you, we tried to help Terra when he took her, but we were too late. Maybe if we stop fighting, we can help Star once again before it’s too late for her too”, Beast Boy stood up, slowly getting closer to the pair of teens. “Come on, Robin. You know Starfire, she is our friend. I know you are hurt, but she’s your best friend”, Cyborg calmed down. “You said it before, she’s been there for all of us. We have to be by her side now if she needs us”, Raven also walked to the leader. He sighed. “Well, we know where to look”.

-

Starfire sat on the edge of the couch of the leaving room in the lodge. She hid her face in her hands, trying to keep her tears from falling, trying to keep herself from sobbing, trying not to break. So many thoughts, so many questions. Why did Robin react like that? Why did he get so obsessed with Slade? Would he able to hurt her just to get to Slade? She shook her head. He wouldn’t, this wasn’t him. Did Slade poison Robin again? Why else would he be able to hurt her? Why didn’t he care about the kiss? Why did she do it?

“Are you okay?”, Jason’s voice interrupter her tangled thoughts. She looked up at him. “I should be the one asking. Are you okay, Jason?”, she moved away just a bit when he came to sit beside her. “I feel better, thanks for patching me up and giving me whatever those pills were”, he smiled at her, she did too but the tears in her eyes made them sparkle with sadness.

“I am sorry”, she apologized, hiding her face again as her tears started falling down. “Hey, Star, don’t say sorry. We had a rough day, it’s okay”, she looked back up as he said that. “Slade called, he said we must wait for his order to get the diamond to him”, she tried to hide a crack in her voice, but she couldn’t, and she bit her lip to keep herself together. “I am so- It is just too much and-“, again she bit her bottom lip. “Do you wanna talk about it?”, he asked moving closer to her. She shook her head, breaking down once more, trying to hide herself again but Jason stopped her, wrapping her arms around her waist in a tight hug. She put her arms around his shoulders, her face buried in the space were his right one met his neck. 

Starfire’s body was shaking as she cried her heart out. Jason held her firmly, trying as hard as she was doing to keep her from breaking. She felt so fragile in his arms, so vulnerable and so shattered. He tried his best to keep her pieces together, but he could feel her breaking again and again as a new wave of tears hit her.

She cried for a while and he waited patiently, caressing her hair with one of his hands, pushing away her guilt with reassuring words and listening to her mumbling about how sorry she was. Maybe 10 minutes after that, they had moved around. Jason was sitting with his back on the backrest of the couch. She sat beside him, her head on his chest, with her face still trying to find a hiding spot, and her arms were around his waist. He was still caressing her red hair softly, playing with it from time to time and then just brushing it with his fingers.

“Jason?”, Starfire looked up. “Hey”, he replied his voice sounded soft like a whisper. “I am grateful for your company and understanding”, she was still looking up at him. “Anytime”, he replied in his regular playful tone. “I feel ready to talk about it”, she moved away from him. The warmth of her body was no longer on his and he missed it immediately. The alien princess sat by his side, closer to the edge of the couch. 

“I do not like lying to my friends. I do not like lying to-“, she caught a sob right before it made her break again. “To Robin?”, X asked, and she nodded. “But I feel hurt by him too. I know I am the one who is wrong, I am the one lying, and I am the one who betrayed them, but I am hurt too”, she sighed. “It hurts talking about him”. Jason moved forward so his face was closer to hers. “Then forget about him. I wanna know more about you. Who’s this mysterious alien princess with those amazing powers?”, Starfire giggled at his question. “What do you want to know?”, she played along. “Do you fly everywhere you go just because you can?”, she nodded. “Do you use your powers for mundane things like frying an egg or baking something?”, she looked away. “I am not good at cooking Earth foods, but I do make the best Tamaranean dishes. I shall prepare them for you sometime”, she smiled again. “Is your body always that warm?”, she pouted as she thought about her answer. “Well, the cold only affects me when it is very strong. I do stay warm even in the snow”, she nodded. “You are amazing”, the words slipped out of his mouth but the smile on her face made him feel better. 

“What about you, Jason?”, she moved closer to him, pushing him a little bit when she bumped her shoulder on his. “What do you want to know, miss warm princess?”, she looked away. Her eyes looking around as her mind tried to come out with an interesting question. “Where did you learn French?”, she asked, and he moved his head to the side. “When did I tell you about French?”, she shook her head. “You did not. I received it through the lip contact. I noticed when I read a sign in the museum and I could understand a word in French”. The lip contact, he thought. “My adoptive father taught me. I am also learning Chinese, German and Russian”, somehow he hoped she was interested in learning any of those languages. “What is an adoptive father? Is it a different father?”, Starfire looked back at him. “Well, when kids lose their true parents, sometimes they will get adopted by another father or mother, those become your adoptive parents”, he explained looking away, thinking about his own ‘true parents’. “Are they not real? Why are they not just your new parents? Or are they your k’norfka?”, Bruce wasn’t his real father to him, but he was to Dick, he thought. “I guess they can become just your parents with time, but we are not there yet. What is a k’norfka? Can I learn Tamaranean through lip contact?”, Jason frowned, and Starfire giggled. 

“Jason… About the lip contact”, the alien princess looked down at her feet. “I am sorry”, he looked back at her when she said that. He wasn’t sorry. “It’s okay”, no it wasn’t just okay. “I was scared, and I just wanted to…”, she moved her head to the other side, away from him. “It’s okay”, no, again, it wasn’t just okay. “I do not even know what I wanted. I just felt scared and alone, but then I did not feel alone anymore”. Both teens stayed silent for a couple of minutes. “Starfire?”, she turned her head back and looked at him. “Yes, Jason”, he looked into her emerald eyes. He felt trapped in them. “Did you-“.

Before Jason could speak a loud noise broke the mood. Jason groaned, as he took his mask from the coffee table and put it on. He looked through the glass wall in front of them while he stood up. “There’s an elephant in the patio”, he announced. Starfire stood up. “My friends. We can’t let them take the diamond or know about the plan”, Starfire put on her utility belt, which was on the coffee table too. Red X put on his too. 

The Titans walked to the door and knocked on it. “They are very polite”, Jason joked around. “Starfire, we want to talk”, Cyborg yelled. “That seems worse”, X replied. “Do you want me to make them go away?”, Starfire shook her head. “We have to get to Slade and give him the diamond. Take it, it is in my room. Then drive to Slade, I will distract them and then I will go with you”, Starfire pushed Jason. “Starfire, open up!”, Beast Boy yelled. “Are you sure?”, Red X asked and she nodded. 

As Red X ran into Starfire’s room, she walked to the door and opened it. “Star, can we talk?”, Robin asked as he stood in front of her. “I do not wish to talk. Please, I need you to leave”, her voice was soft like it usually was. “We won’t leave, Star. We are your friends. If you need us, we will be here for you”, he continued. He sounded more like her Robin than he did back in the museum. “Come on Star, we know about Blackfire and Slade. We can take both down together?”, Cyborg tried to get her to let her guard down, but she refused once again. “I am warning you, stay away from me”, she stated firmly. “Starfire, you don’t want to hurt us. I can feel it. Whatever it’s going on, we will help you”, Raven tried to touch her arm, but the alien princess pushed her away. “You do not understand. I am not on your side anymore. I am- “, evil? 

Once again, a loud noise interrupted their conversation. This time, the cause of it made Starfire shiver. Blackfire landed behind her teammates. “Hello, little sister”, the Titans got ready to fight her. “Don’t worry Star, we’ll take care of her”, Cyborg. “Didn’t you kids hear the news? I won’t have mercy on you”, the purple haired girl walked to the Titans, playing with the red emerald shaped diamond she wore in a necklace. “We won’t have mercy on you either”, Robin declared as the team got ready to fight her. “This will be fun”, Blackfire caressed the jewel but before she could fight the teens, her sister stood in front of her.

“Star, come on, we can take her”, Beast Boy said. “What is it, sis? I thought you wanted to be on the right side of history”, Starfire’s hands were shaking. “Are you trying to disrespect your queen?”, Starfire shook her head. “Are you and your human friend traitors?”, Blackfire’s eyes burned through her sister’s. “You mean Slade?”, Robin asked as he moved closer to the purple eyed girl. “Yes, do you want me to kill him after I kill them?”. Again, all eyes were on Starfire. “It is not that, I just wish to assist you. You should not waste your time with petty fights”, the red-haired princess explained, trying to sound as calm and collected as she could. “Interesting, sister”, Blackfire playfully smiled at the thought of what was about to come. Starfire looked back at her friends, they were confused. “Does that mean you are giving up?”, Beast Boy asked. “No, ‘dude’, that means, she is taking you down”, Blackfire laughed as she lifted herself up. “Come on, sis, show time!”, the older girl announced watching from above.

Starfire turned around, her powers weren’t ready to use, she didn’t feel anger, she felt fear, just pure fear. Red X saw her from inside the lodge as he was about to go to the basement. He couldn’t leave her alone, she looked like she needed help and she was there for him before, so he decided to be by her side now.

The door opened and Red X walked out. “Starfire remember the X”, he said, pointing to the clocking device in his utility belt. “Who is this? Is he your new boyfriend, sis? You are really into capes, aren’t you?”, Blackfire asked, still looking at the scene like it was some twisted horror movie made just for her. Red X stood back.

“I got it, get to Slade”, the Tamaranean princess stated. “Wait”, Robin yelled in his regular commanding tone. “What is going on, Star?”, was he finally asking what she wanted him to ask? “Why are you two working for Slade together?”, the masked hero asked, walking up to her. “Sister, I’m getting bored”, Blackfire booed. But lucky for Starfire, she felt the fury she needed building up slowly. “What did Slade offer you?”, Robin continued approaching her. “Why do you want to protect him?”, Starfire chuckled. She didn’t want to, but she did. “Robin is there anything else you want to know?”, the Tamaranean teen firmly asked. “Yes”, Robin finally stood in front if her, just a couple of steps away. “Have you been working for him ever since you came to Earth? Is that why way became a Titan? Did you help Slade get to me?”, the shock that appeared in her face while he made his questions quickly turned into anger. “How dare you insinuate that? I would never hurt you, Robin”, she quickly answered, her eyes fully lit up. “Well you have already done that”, did he mean the kiss? “How?”, she asked, her eyes going back to normal. “You are working with Slade, aren’t you?”, his tone, his frown, Slade. 

Her eyes lit up once more and another explosion of green energy sent the Titans flying away. Red X, covered behind his cape and his mask hid the horror in his expression. He had never seen her like this.

“Yes, I am. I am working with Slade and serving my sister to take this planet. But the only thing you care about is Slade”, Starfire angrily yelled out her words. Robin and the rest of the team were getting back up slowly. Raven was the first one to approach Starfire, who had a Starbolt ready to blow in her hand. When the half demon touched it, thinking the alien would let it go, it hurt her. Starfire stood still, fear trying to break her again and many emotions did the same but for the first time she couldn’t allow herself to feel them. 

A birdarang pushed her hand away, when Starfire tried to reach Raven’s. She looked back at Robin. “Starfire, this is your last chance. Stop it or we will have to take you down”, the leader of the team declared. The alien princess didn’t answer, she just looked at him, trying read his eyes, trying to guess if there was any way things could go back to how they were before. When did she care that much about him asking about the kiss? The real question she wanted to hear from him was the one was about to ask back at the lodge, at least she thought he would say what she wished for. But this was her last chance and also their last chance. 

She could feel the tears building up and the fury flying away. No, no, no. Don’t. Not right now. She tried to focus on the anger, on the fury, but no amount of fury could wash over the pain she felt for just thinking about losing him. No, no, no. Don’t leave. Who was she asking to stay? Did she want him to stay or did she want the fury to stay? Too many emotions, her powers were getting weaker and she let her arms fall to the sides of her body. 

“Star-“, Robin walked to her but a purple blackbolt pushed the masked hero to the ground. “Well, sister, if you are not taking the trash out, I will”, Blackfire announced, her eyes lit up and her hands glowing with energy ready to shoot. A birdarang flew to the older sister and before it touched her, Starfire blasted it with a starbolt. “Do not worry”, Starfire’s eyes started glowing up again as she flew to her friends and started shooting starbolts again and again. 

Red X stepped back, shocked at the scene that was evolving in front of him. Starfire was winning the fight, her abilities combined with the the Red X suit were too much for the Teen Titans. One by one her friends fell to the ground, trapped in sticky Xs, electrocuted, out of order or just hurt. The last one standing was Robin, the one who she had been avoiding. Jason knew that this was a changing point for her but didn’t know if she would come out fine from it. He tried to join her, but Blackfire shot him a couple of blackbolts that he didn’t get to avoid. 

Starfire turned around to see Red X wounded, she whispered her name in despair. Her eyes going back to normal. “No sidekicks for this one. Robin gets a pass”, Blackfire laughed at the expression on the masked teen as he groaned. Starfire’s anger was back, she was angry at Blackfire for hurting Jason and Robin caught it. He threw one of his smoke pellets to run away but Starfire followed him. 

This wasn’t like him; he would never let his teammates on the ground and run away. The anger she felt for Blackfire was covered with worry that she now felt for Robin. What was he trying to do? She went after him, running just like he did.

Something hit her ankles and made her trip. Robin had made her run into the woods, used his Bola to trap her and she fell to the ground as she lost balance. “Starfire, what is this?”, he asked, and she looked up at him. “Why did you hurt our friends? Why are you letting Blackfire control you?”, he stopped himself, she noticed he was struggling to say something. “Why do you care so much about Red X?”, the question hurt more than anything she had taken to this day. And it hurt because she could feel the pain in Robin’s voice. “Do you care about him?”, she sighed when he asked her that. “I do”, she answered, freeing herself from the weapon he had used on her. “And…”, again he was struggling to talk. “Do you care about me?”, again, she felt like he had just shoot her straight to her heart. She couldn’t answer, she couldn’t fall for it. Not now. 

“Star, did you become closer to me to help your sister and Slade?”, the pain she felt made her step back. If only she could say what she really felt. “I don’t understand what is going on. I wanna ask you so many questions. One minute we are hanging out on our first date, then you are kissing Red X and taking Earth. It doesn’t make sense”, he continued. “Make it make sense, Starfire”, she shook her head. “No, what? No, you don’t care about our team? About me? About us?”. Us? Again, he was referring to them as a couple. But they weren’t and now she felt like they never would be.

“I have to do this, Robin. It will make sense later”, she spoke up finally and he only grew more confused at her statement. “What does that mean?”. Starfire continued shaking her head. The teen boy got closer to her, close enough for her heart to start beating faster than it normally would and for her cheeks to blush. “Look, Star, I am not good with words. I am not the right one to ask you to open up, but I need you to. Please, Starfire”, his right hand went up to her cheek, caressing it softly with his thumb. “Robin, I cannot”, he put his other hand in her other cheek. “Yes, Star, you can do it”, she shook her head once more. “What can I do to make you trust me again?”, Robin was whispering, and it made her shiver. She knew what she wanted and finally she got it. His lips softly landed on hers and she immediately closed her eyes. 

Time froze, or at least that’s how it felt for her. How soft, she thought as her lips danced with his. Sweet, she thought next as their mouths opened up just enough for them to taste each other. Warm, she thought as his arms wrapped around her waist pulling her closer. No, she thought as both let go of the kiss panting. He smiled, looking at her blushing face. “I am sorry for getting so obsessed with Slade. It’s just that he’s put you in so much danger and then he made me hurt you. I still can’t forget about it. I can’t forgive him for that”, his words healed her wounds and her teary eyes reflected how much she needed to hear him. “I trust you, Star, I will help you take Blackfire down. I will follow your lead and we will get our home back”, Robin’s voice sounded so reassuring, so calming and so safe. “Do you trust me, Star?”, he asked. “I do, Robin, I trust you and I-“, as she was about to pour her heart out a purple blackbolt shot Robin on the back, making him fall into her arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: hey! hope you like the 7th episode. so blackfire’s finally in the story and she will be even meaner next time they see her. let me know your thoughts for this episode, any guess on what’s next? hope you are having a nice day/night.
> 
> Episode 8 spoiler: The Teen Titans were waking up, slowly sitting in their pods. Robin was standing up, holding his body against one of the pod’s walls. She quickly ran to her friends, followed by Red X. “Friends”, she whispered as she stood in front of Beast Boy’s pod. “I am getting you out of there”, she joyfully spoke, walking to the next pod: Cyborg’s. “I promise”, she moved to Raven’s pod. “We will have one more chance”, she stood in front of Robin’s pod. He came closer to her, his hands trying to reach hers through the glass, but they couldn’t touch. On the glass she also saw Red X’s reflection.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first story in this website. It is also my first time publishing one of my RobStar stories.  
> Disclaimer: I speak in Spanish so this may not be a 100% well written, sorry. I hope you like it anyway.  
> I will update twice a month at least but I want to try to update every saturday/sunday.
> 
> Thanks for reading. Take care.


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